


What More Can I Say, Except I'm Sorry?

by Love2Slash



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-13 15:36:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/825918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Love2Slash/pseuds/Love2Slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mike's performance at work starts to give cause for concern, Harvey finds it increasingly difficult to separate the personal relationship he shares with his young associate from their professional one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SilentScreamer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentScreamer/gifts).



Nervously, Mike waits for Harvey to finish flicking through the paperwork he's just presented him with. His headache is still annoyingly persistent, however, and absent-mindedly he presses the pad of his thumb just under his right eyebrow in an effort to alleviate the pain, although admittedly without much success.

"Is it okay?" he asks, trying to keep the anxiety out of his voice. There's only silence from Harvey though, and inwardly Mike cringes when Harvey's disapproving eyes eventually swivel towards him and impale him with a glittering, dark stare.

"I'll tell you exactly what it is," the older man replies coldly. "It's about four hours too late. This was supposed to be on my desk at 8am this morning and you promised me it would be."

"Yeah, I know," Mike says apologetically, shuffling from one foot to the other as his shoulders slump in defeat. "What more can I say, except I'm sorry?"

"Dammit, Mike," Harvey suddenly shouts, banging his closed fist hard on the desk, making Mike jump and causing not only the display of baseballs to rattle in their plinths, but also a spike of pain to crash through Mike's head. "Sometimes sorry just isn't good enough. If I give you a deadline, it's because I have a deadline, and if you don't meet yours then that fucks up my day."

"I do know that," Mike begins, but the older man holds up a hand to silence him and he quickly closes his mouth.

"It's not like this is an isolated incident either," Harvey continues. "Your time-keeping in general is leaving a lot to be desired at the moment, and I don't just mean with your actual work either. You've been late getting into the office every day this week, and don't go thinking that just because I'm not always here that I don't know what's going on, because I do."

Mike glances over his shoulder at Donna, but her eyes are wide and innocent as she shakes her head at him in a silent _'It wasn't me'_ gesture.

"Anything else that displeases you?" he asks, turning back, although Harvey either misses the slight tone of sarcasm in his voice or he chooses to ignore it.

"Yeah, actually," he replies, nodding. "Your appearance could do with a little bit of smartening up these days too, you know. You need to give your wardrobe a bit of a freshen up if that suit's anything to go by, and your hair's getting a bit too long as well. It's touching your collar. Get it cut."

Flinging the late report irreverently to one side, Harvey then turns his attention back to his laptop, and when he looks up a few moments later, Mike is nowhere to be seen

 

It's Wednesday, so they meet at eight at one of their usual restaurants, a traditional Italian roughly equidistant between Pearson Hardman and their two home addresses. Harvey's there first and he takes it upon himself to order for them both, so that when Mike eventually throws himself down into his seat, his pizza arrives seconds later.

"Late again," Harvey observes drily. Nevertheless, he smiles a friendly greeting at the younger man, although he's quick to notice that it's not readily returned.

"You know, I might not have wanted this," Mike grumbles, ignoring Harvey's jibe about his punctuality as he indicates the pizza.

"You always order exactly that whenever we come here," Harvey says, eyeing him with amusement. "What's wrong with you anyway? You still pissed at me for reaming you out at the office today? Because you know you totally deserved that, right?"

At first Mike remains tight-lipped, but when Harvey grins mockingly over the rim of his wine glass at him, his temper flares and the slow-burning resentment he's been harbouring all afternoon finally bubbles to the surface. "Yeah, Harvey," he snaps, "I'm more than a bit pissed actually. I already told you I was having problems with that file two days ago, and you just told me to take my time."

"I definitely didn't tell you to bring it to me late, though," Harvey retorts, his easy grin quickly replaced by a carefully cultivated frown. "You knew the deadline, and not having that file on time actually cost me an extra two hundred thousand dollars on my settlement. I don't suppose you even gave _that_ a single minute's thought, though, did you?"

"Jesus, Harvey," Mike snaps crossly, "is money really all you ever think about? I did my best and I said I was sorry. What more do you want me to say?"

Harvey watches him, trying hard not to smile at the pinched appearance of Mike's nose, which when it's white at the tip, like it is now, is a sure giveaway sign that he's actually mad and not merely faking. 

"And since when did you get to decide on the length of my hair anyway?" Mike continues when he gets no response. "That has no effect on my work. It has nothing to do with you. For your information, I'll wear my hair just exactly how the hell I want and you'll just have to deal with it." 

He finishes abruptly, panting, seething, his fingers bunched into fists under the table, and his head, unfortunately, throbbing harder now than it has been all day.

"Your little tantrum all finished?" Harvey asks him, calmly scooping up the last mouthful of his pasta with his fork and stuffing it into his mouth, although he shakes his head as Mike crossly pushes his uneaten pizza away. "Hey, Mike, c'mon," he says, pushing the pizza plate back. "Let's forget all that for now. It was you who insisted that we carry on exactly as normal during office hours, but we're not in the office now. Lighten up."

Mike sighs, for deep down he knows that Harvey has a point: this is _exactly_ what he'd agreed to.

"Feels like you've been picking on me a lot lately, though," he grumbles, unable, or at least unwilling, to let it go. He still hasn't touched his food.

Now it's Harvey's turn to huff out a sigh of his own. "I thought we said we'd keep work out of the bedroom?" he says heavily. 

"Well, strictly speaking we're not in the bedroom at the moment," Mike replies. "We're in a restaurant, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Hey, don't get smart with me, kid," Harvey snaps, getting angry now, despite himself. "Okay, so seeing as we're _not_ in the bedroom right now, maybe I should take the opportunity to remind you that your work hasn't been at all up to scratch just lately, and that actually, I'd be failing in my duty as your boss if I didn't say so, so thanks for giving me the chance to tell it to you again, _rookie._ " 

He sits back and waits, fully expecting Mike to argue back, to maybe call him an asshole, or at least to scowl sulkily. What he doesn't expect is for Mike to look so suddenly and utterly crushed.

If Harvey lets that look play on his mind at all, it doesn't stop him pushing Mike up against the wall the second they're inside his condo, his fingers already tugging at the younger man's zipper as he bites down on his neck. "Need to fuck you," he moans against the stubble on Mike's throat. "Now," and before long, he's got Mike naked and kneeling face down on the bed, and he's gripping his hips hard enough to bruise while vigorously fucking him from behind. He can tell that Mike is still angry with him though, because usually the younger man prefers to come while lying on his back, with his legs spread wide and Harvey's cock buried in him to the hilt, keeping a steady gaze on Harvey's face right up until the second he starts to jerk and his eyes begin to roll, but tonight he resists all of Harvey's attempts to flip him over and instead he chooses to remain face down, his knees and elbows planted solidly and stubbornly against the mattress as Harvey pounds into him from behind. 

When he eventually slumps down onto the bed, taking the full weight of Harvey lying heavily on top of him, he continues to lie there, unmoving, his face hidden in the pillow, and when Harvey eventually rolls off him to go to the bathroom for a shower, he doesn't follow.

"Mike, go clean up," Harvey tells him when he returns, but Mike remains motionless, still lying naked in the same position as when Harvey had clambered off him. He waits, but when Mike doesn't move, Harvey pulls the towel from his neck and flicks it at the back of Mike's thigh, at which Mike groans something loud but unintelligible.

"What? I can't hear you? Turn over."

"I said I have a headache," Mike groans, lifting his head slightly, although his words are still muffled against the pillow. 

"You're supposed to say that as an excuse before sex, not after," Harvey says irritably. "Come on Mike, get up. Don't just lie there in your own filth."

"Oh, it's filth now, is it?" Mike says, finally lifting his face out of the pillow in order to speak over his shoulder. "Last week, you licked me clean and said it was the food of love."

Harvey clicks his tongue in consternation as he realizes he isn't going to get anywhere with Mike in this stubborn mood. He disappears back into the bathroom then returns with two towels, one damp, the other dry, and then he sits down heavily on the edge of the bed next to his sulky young lover.

"Turn over," he instructs. "Mike, come on. It's late. We both have work tomorrow morning. I need some sleep, even if you don't."

Reluctantly, Mike rolls over, and he watches sullenly as Harvey proceeds to wipe him down before drying him off. 

"You know you're acting like a child, don't you?" Harvey says. He watches him closely for a few seconds, his head on one side. "What's wrong with your eye?" he asks, frowning.

"What?"

"Your eye, it's all bloodshot. Does it hurt?" 

Mike shakes his head, although Harvey notices the movement makes him wince. "I told you," he replies dully. "I have a headache. Maybe it's something to do with that?"

"Maybe should go see a doctor tomorrow?" Harvey counters.

"It's just a headache, Harvey," Mike replies. "It's no big deal."

"But it's – "

"Jesus," Mike snaps, rolling over away from him again. "Can you just shut up about it now? You're making it worse."

Harvey frowns as he purses his lips. He isn't used to Mike snapping at him like this, and he has to admit he doesn't like it one bit. It's on the tip of his tongue to tell the kid to get up, go home and go and sleep in his own Goddamn bed, but he quietly tidies away the towels and slips back into the bathroom to clean his teeth instead. When he returns, Mike seems to be sleeping already, so he carefully lifts the duvet and slides in beside him. 

He genuinely hasn't meant to upset Mike over the deadline he missed, but he needs an associate who can keep up. He wonders, and certainly not for the first time, if maybe allowing this extra-curricular relationship to develop between them had been a bad idea after all. Maybe this was why Mike seemed to have taken his eye off the ball lately? Of course he'd realized that Mike had been a needy kid when he'd first taken him on, but at the time had actually only foreseen a fraction of what was to come. The drug habit he'd dealt with pretty easily, and getting rid of his loser of a so-called friend, Trevor, had been no hassle at all. But Mike's problems had been a lot more deep-seated than even Harvey had first realized. The deaths of his parents obviously still weighed heavily upon him, and he'd clearly never gotten any real help with that. More recently, too, the death of his grandmother, Edith, seemed only to have compounded his problems, and Harvey had seen him become a lot more clingy and emotionally insecure of late.

It had frightened Harvey that he hadn't been able to cut the kid loose when this had happened. He liked his relationships simple and uncomplicated, especially his sexual ones, and although he and Mike had started out simple enough, somewhere along the way he'd ended up caring about the younger man a lot more than he'd ever intended. Of course, he would never admit to being in love with him, or anything remotely like it, and he certainly would never dream of showing the real extent of his feelings for Mike to the boy himself, let alone anyone else, but deep down he knew that he was in totally over his head.

"I'm sorry, Harvey."

The small voice breaks through the darkness and into his thoughts, and then Mike is rolling over towards him and burrowing into his arms. Harvey accepts him gladly.

"I thought you were asleep," he whispers, kissing Mike's hair. 

He feels Mike shake his head against his chest and he pulls him in even closer.

"I'm sorry too," he says, surprising himself when he realizes he actually means it. "I really didn't mean to give you such a hard time." He's not sure at first if he means about what had happened at work, the argument in the restaurant, or the sex, which had been pretty rough, and then he accepts that he probably means all three. "How's your head now?" he asks. "Any better?"

"A bit," Mike says, which Harvey guesses means no better at all. 

"Want me to get you some painkillers?" 

"No, just hold me."

He presses himself closer, and Harvey pets his hair gently, enjoying the comforting warmth of Mike's smooth skin against his own.

 

In the morning, Mike, up early for once, lays on the bed, watching Harvey dressing. He hasn't told Harvey, of course, but it's one of his very favourite things to do.

"Your pants are getting creased," Harvey warns him, and then when Mike grins, he adds, "Yeah, yeah, like you care, right?" He looks over at Mike in the mirror as he neatens his Windsor knot, and frowns as yet again he sees him pressing his fingers to the brow above his right eye.

"You're doing that thing again," he says, turning round.

"What thing?"

"Touching your eye. Your head still bothering you?" They'd made love early that morning, slowly and lazily, face to face, and then again later, hard and quick in the shower, but Mike hadn't mentioned anything about his head still hurting.

"No, it's okay now," Mike answers, dropping his hand. 

"Well, I still think you should see a doctor," Harvey says. "Or at the very least you need to go get your eyes tested."

Mike snorts. "My vision is way sharper than yours, old man," he teases.

"You sure about that?" Harvey replies, ignoring Mike's playful jibe. "When did you last even have them checked?"

Mike shrugs. "You know when," he says. "There was a chart test on my exam for enrolment into the Pearson Hardman medical scheme."

"Yeah, but that wasn't a full exam, was it?" Harvey replies. "Look, I'm just thinking maybe that's why you've been struggling at work a bit recently. Maybe you just need glasses or something?"

"Oh, well thanks for reminding me how crap you think I am," Mike says frowning. He watches as Harvey picks up his wallet from the dresser, rifling through it until he locates a silver-edged business card and tugs it free.

"Go see this guy and mention my name," he says, flicking the card down onto the bed beside Mike's knee. "He's absolutely first class, and more importantly, he owes me."

"Harvey," Mike protests, "I don't need my eyes testing."

"Then humour me," Harvey says insistently. "Be a good boy, Mike. Do as you're told."

Mike sighs, stands up, then dutifully tucks the card into his own wallet. "Yes sir," he says, clicking his heels together and lifting his hand in a mock salute, and then he reaches for his jacket and quickly shrugs it on as he follows Harvey out of the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike's problems with both his work and his health continue as he struggles to come to terms with his grandmother's death. Harvey does his best to help.

"Harvey, I need to speak to you about Mike Ross." 

Inwardly, Harvey groans and it's all he can do to prevent himself from doing so out loud. Louis has been bugging him about Mike for days now and so far he's managed to successfully keep him at bay, but now the other man is physically blocking Harvey's way and there's no escaping him any longer.

"Mike's fine," Harvey insists emphatically. "Now, Louis, if there's nothing else – "

"Mike is very definitely _not_ fine," Louis says, his chest swelling in an attempt to completely fill the doorframe as Harvey tries, unsuccessfully this time, to skirt past him. "How much time have you actually spent with him lately? Have you even bothered to look at the quality of his work?"

Sighing heavily, Harvey steps back and gestures to his couch. "Take a seat, Louis," he says, glancing quickly at his wristwatch. "You've got precisely ten minutes though, and not a second more."

Surprised to be granted at least this much, Louis wastes no time in crossing quickly to the couch, and he sits down heavily before Harvey can change his mind. He waits for Harvey to take an adjacent seat and then he holds out the dark blue folder he's been carrying. "You need to take a good look at this," he says crisply.

"What is it?" Harvey asks, accepting the folder.

"It's the Ridgeway Holdings file. Mike's supposedly been working on it for the past three days and his absolute deadline is noon today, a fact of which he is very well aware, and with less than three hours to go your associate is currently nowhere to be found. The work he _has_ completed, however, is woefully inadequate, but please, don't just take my word for it. Have a good look for yourself."

Frowning, Harvey flips opens the file, but even after scanning its contents for less than a minute or so, he feels his heart begin to sink. Apart from the fact that Mike seems to have completed very little of the necessary work on the case, what he has done is both inaccurate and disorderly.

"I'll speak to him," he says, slapping the file back down on the table.

Louis's chest puffs out, and he positively bristles with indignation. "That's it?" he asks. "That's your solution? You'll _speak_ to him?" 

"Oh, sorry, Louis," Harvey replies, and then leans forwards in his seat towards the other man. "I didn't know you weren't wearing your hearing aid today," he continues loudly, tapping his ear.

Louis shakes his head. "Harvey, this is an important case, and I'm sure I don't need to remind you of the figures involved, not to mention the risk we run of tarnishing the good name of this firm if we don't bring the case to a satisfactory conclusion." He reaches for the file but then snatches his hand back in surprise when Harvey makes a grab for it and pulls it out of his reach.

"I'll deal with it," Harvey snarls as he stands up, tucking the folder under his arm.

"Make sure it's by noon then," Louis warns, as he also jumps to his feet. "Otherwise, I may need to go to Jessica about this."

"Jessica?" For a moment, Harvey is genuinely stunned. "Don't be ridiculous, Louis," he snaps. "As long as we meet the deadline, what difference does it make?"

"I'll tell you what difference it might make, shall I?" Louis says. He glances about him, as if he thinks there's a chance somebody might overhear him, and then he speaks in a hushed, conspiratorial tone. "I take it you have actually looked at Mike Ross lately?" he says. "Haven't you noticed? He looks … _different_ somehow, and I don't mean in a good way. I've been wondering if, well … you know – if he's …" 

As his voice trails off, Harvey's heart skips a beat, although as always he ensures his expression remains impassive. He knows that he and Mike haven't always been as discreet as they might have been on their evenings out, but he's still pretty sure that no-one at the office, maybe not even Donna, is aware of the real nature of their out-of-hours activities.

"If he's what, Louis?" he prompts, his heart thudding, despite the stillness of his face.

"Well, what I mean is, if a member of staff is using recreational drugs, then Jessica will want to know. She – "

At that, Harvey interrupts with a loud laugh of relief. "Mike's not doing drugs," he scoffs. "Where the hell did you get that idea?"

Again, Louis glances about him before speaking in a near whisper. 

"His behaviour's been really quite erratic recently," he says, "not to mention the fact that I actually saw him taking some pills in the restroom last week, and – "

"You idiot!" Harvey exclaims. "That's prescription medication he's been taking to prevent heachaches. Not that it's any of your business, of course. And you do know that his grandmother, his only surviving relative, died recently?"

"Well, you might have told me about the medication," Louis says indignantly. "After all, he might be your associate, but he's my responsibility overall, and any fool can see that he can't carry on like this, whether it's because of genuine illness or otherwise. You know, Harvey, for all its naivety, Mike Ross's early work was spectacular, but now? Now, I wouldn't even trust him to prepare a case for housing court, let alone actually win it. This firm doesn't carry passengers, and you damn well know it." He pauses, almost as if he's allowing a gap for the famous Specter backlash, but for once it doesn't come. "If there's no improvement in his performance soon," he says, I _will_ be forced to take action."

"And I've already told you," Harvey growls, leaning his face dangerously close in towards the other man's. "Leave it to me."

After Louis scurries from the room, Harvey instructs Donna to hold his calls until further notice. He tries Mike's cell, leaves a message demanding to know his current location, which on the surface sounds quite angry but is actually tinged with genuine concern, and then he settles down at his desk to deal with the Ridgeway Holdings file himself. 

Finding Mike has made a number of basic errors in the first few pages of the folder, Harvey corrects them efficiently and methodically, becoming so thoroughly absorbed in the work itself that a couple of hours quickly passes by before he even thinks about looking at his watch. At 11.29, and well before the noon deadline, he heads down to Louis's office himself, where he leaves the file with Norma. 

"Make sure he gets this immediately, and tell him Mike Ross sends his regards," he says, planting the folder squarely in the middle of her desk before heading back to his office, and when Donna informs him that Mike has just been there looking for him less than three minutes ago, he phones his cell, only slightly appeased when Mike picks up immediately.

"Where the hell have you been?" he says, not waiting for an answer. "My office. Now."

While he waits, Harvey stands at the window, thinking about everything Louis had said that morning. The man was a dick, but he was right about one thing: Mike's performance had definitely been in decline recently, and something needed to be done about it, and fast.

When Mike appears in the doorway seconds later, he looks pale and nervous, especially when Harvey doesn't return his tentative smile.

"Sit down, Mike," Harvey says gruffly. It's an order, not an invitation, and although he's tempted to comment on the fact that Mike's had his hair cut at last, he initially remains tight-lipped.

"Harvey," Mike begins, "I – "

"I said sit down."

At that, Mike promptly sits down on the couch where only a few hours previously Louis had been sitting, and then he eyes Harvey anxiously as the older man pulls up a chair.

"Louis has been to me to complain this morning," Harvey says, typically getting straight to the point. "About you."

Mike gulps and his gaze flicks nervously from Harvey's dark eyes, to the hard angry line of his mouth and back again. "Really?" he asks, licking his lips. "What about?"

"The Ridgeway Holdings file."

At that, Mike quickly drops his eyes. 

Harvey frowns. "He was very concerned about your work on the case," he says, "and, if I'm brutally honest, I'd say he had every right to be. It was sloppy work, Mike, and you know this firm can't tolerate that." He pauses, wanting to give Mike the opportunity to defend himself, but the younger man just continues to look down at the floor. "Mike," he says, his voice a little softer now, as the edges between hardass boss and doting lover begin to blur just a little too much even for his own comfort. "Why didn't you come to me if you were having trouble meeting that deadline? I could have helped you."

"I don't know," Mike says, shrugging his shoulders but still not making eye contact. "I was ashamed, I guess. I didn't want you to think I wasn't coping."

"But you're not coping."

Harvey hasn't meant that to sound quite so brutal as it did, and he hates it that his words cause Mike to flinch, but nevertheless, he knows it needed to be said. He also knows that although Mike had hadn't actually needed glasses after all, a doctor he'd later seen about his frequent headaches had suggested that they were most probably caused by tension related to stress.

Briefly, Harvey wonders, and it's certainly not for the first time either, whether it had been a fair thing to do to have thrown Mike headlong into the high pressure environment of a top law firm like Pearson Hardman. Sure, he was an incredibly smart kid, and not just smart either, but willing and eager to learn, but the stresses and strains of working such long hours, day in, day out, and where the expectations were so unbelievably high, was bound to take its toll on someone who hadn't been thoroughly prepared for it. Not only all that, but Mike had no family to help him take the strain, not even an elderly, infirm grandmother anymore, and certainly no other real friends to speak of, except maybe Rachel, and he rarely saw her outside of work. He had no-one therefore, to really anchor him to the real world outside the firm.

Well, that last part, Harvey could certainly relate to. He briefly thinks of his brother, but he can't remember the last time he even spoke to him on the phone, let alone spent any time with him.

"Look, Mike," he says, leaning forward in his chair so that their knees are almost touching, "I know you've had a rough time lately, and maybe … well, maybe I should take some of the blame for that. Our relationship, the way we've been behaving – "

At that, Mike suddenly looks up, his eyes big and anxious. "Are you breaking up with me?" he cries, his voice not only high with emotion, but also far too loud for Harvey's liking, and he glances over his shoulder through the glass wall at Donna, although she appears to just go right on typing, oblivious, apparently, to the exchange currently taking place between her boss and his young associate.

"Mike, no, no, not at all," he assures him in hushed tones. "That's the last thing I want, I promise. We're just purely talking work here, okay? And for God's sake, keep your voice down." He offers him a small half smile, and Mike seems to seize upon the reassurance it provides as he takes a deep shuddery breath.

"Okay," he whispers. "I - I'm sorry." 

"It's all right," Harvey says. His tone is quiet, soothing, and he suddenly finds himself longing to take Mike into his arms and gently kiss away the worried frown lines which have deepened in his brow. 

"Here's what we're gonna do, okay?" he says, a moment later. "We're gonna get together later after work and talk, _really_ talk, but for now, you need to go back to your cubicle and get as much of your work done as quickly and as thoroughly as possible so we can get Louis off your back. You can do that for me, right?"

Mike nods, but he still looks so thoroughly miserable that again Harvey has to resist the urge to pull him into his arms. Desperately trying to lighten the mood between them as Mike gets up to leave, he says, "Nice haircut, by the way."

Mike, however, can barely raise a smile.

Alone once more, and reluctantly turning his mind to his three o'clock meeting, Harvey pulls out a couple of albums, puts the first record on his turntable, then makes himself comfortable at his desk in order to read through his notes. After a while, he texts Mike, asking him to bring some other relevant files up from the file room, but when after almost thirty minutes there's still no reply, he decides to head down to the bullpen himself in order to seek him out. As he turns to replace his records back on the shelves, however, there's a soft tap on the glass door behind him. 

"About time," he says, turning round, but it's not Mike with the files. It's Rachel.

"Whatever it is, I don't have time right now," he tells her. "I'm just on my way to find Mike."

"Um … that's what I've come to see you about," she says nervously. "Louis has had to send him home."

"He's done what? When? Why?"

Rachel looks embarrassed. "About half an hour ago," she tells him. "Mike got into a bit of an argument with one of the other associates and it all started to get a bit out of hand. A few punches were thrown, so Louis sent them both home to cool off."

"Un-fucking-believable," Harvey growls. He glances at his watch, then realising there really is no time to spare, he makes a conscious effort to put Mike firmly out of his mind in order to concentrate on the needs of his clients. He gives Rachel the details of the files he needs, and in fact commandeers her services for the rest of the afternoon, but at seven o'clock, with his meeting finally over, he heads straight out to Mike's place.

"You going to tell me what the hell's going on with you?" he demands when the door opens. Barefoot in frayed jeans and a gray tee, and looking decidedly shamefaced, Mike shuffles wearily aside to let him in.

"I mean, fighting? Really?" Harvey asks incredulously. "How old are you actually, Mike? Thirteen?"

"It was Kyle's fault," Mike says defensively. "He started it." There's a red mark high up on his left cheekbone, and Harvey, despite himself, can't help hoping that the other guy's face bears at the very least a big black eye and a split lip. 

"You sound like a child," he admonishes. "I mean, come on Mike, you've had trouble with this Kyle guy in the past but you've always managed to maintain your dignity with him up to now. What was different this time?"

Mike looks down before shrugging his shoulders. "I don't know," he confesses.

Sighing, Harvey takes off his jacket and hangs it up and then he crosses to Mike's refrigerator and helps himself to a beer. He offers one to Mike, who shakes his head. "What the hell am I supposed to say, Mike?" he says, throwing himself down onto the couch. "First you get called out on fucking up that Ridgeway Holdings case for Louis and then the next minute you're fighting with one of your colleagues. You know you're making it really hard for me to keep on defending you, don't you?" 

Sinking down onto the couch beside him, Mike looks suddenly frightened, and it's a look which tugs surprisingly hard on Harvey's heart. "Am I getting fired?" he asks. 

"What?" Harvey is genuinely shocked. "Mike, no, no, of course not. No-one's firing anybody, believe me." 

At this, Mike leans forward suddenly and buries his face in his hands. Alarmed, Harvey watches him for a moment, and seeing that he's fighting not to cry, he puts his beer down on the table before putting out a hand out to touch him. He's shocked again though, when Mike jumps to his feet and lurches forward as if he's about to bolt, but Harvey's too quick for him, leaping to his feet and grabbing him and pulling him into his arms. Mike resists at first, holding himself stiffly, his face averted to conceal his tears, but Harvey pulls him even closer and holds him tightly, wrapping his arms around him.

"Mike," he whispers softly, his lips brushing gently against the younger man's ear. "Mike, I want to help you, but you've got to work with me a little here. Come on, come and sit back down with me. Come on." He pulls on Mike's arm, and reluctantly he allows Harvey to guide him back down onto the couch. Harvey holds him for a while, stroking his back and whispering soft words of comfort, but eventually he sits them both back up so that he can see Mike's face.

"What's going on with you?" Harvey asks him. He can't help but notice how very beautiful Mike is, even with a bruised face and red eyes, and it stirs something deep inside him. If someone had pushed him to say how or why he and Mike had first got together, he probably would have just replied "lust" but he realizes that what he's feeling right now isn't sexually motivated, at least not at this precise moment, but more like it's a strong and instinctive desire to preserve and protect the other man. The feeling actually gives him such a fierce ache in his heart that it scares him, possibly beyond anything he's ever experienced before. 

"I know things have been extra hard for you lately," he says carefully when Mike doesn't reply. "After losing your grandmother, you must feel like you've lost everybody, but you've still got me. Talk to me, Mike. I'm here for you, you know, if you want me to be."

There's a long pause then, during which Mike fights to regain control of his trembling lower lip. "I'm sorry," he says eventually. 

"Don't be sorry. Just talk to me."

Another heavy silence follows.

"These problems you've been having with your work," Harvey eventually says. "Is it something to do with me? Because of what's happening between us? Because if it is – "

Mike finally meets his eye then. "No," he says with feeling, shaking his head. "No, Harvey, really. You're totally the best thing in my life right now. The only thing." And then he's pushing himself into Harvey's arms, and Harvey again wraps him up tightly, pulling him close once more and hugging him to his chest. With his new, shorter haircut, the curve of Mike's neck is fully exposed, and Harvey presses his lips to the soft skin, inhaling deeply, taking in the delicious warmth of his scent. His hands glide over the soft cotton of the younger man's tee shirt, gentle and soothing at first, and then Mike's head turns, his lips finding Harvey's, and Harvey finds it all too difficult resist.

They make love, gently at first, and it's almost as if Harvey is afraid Mike will break, but the way the younger man writhes and moans beneath him, grabbing his hips urging him on, soon has Harvey thrusting hard into him as he pins Mike's wrists up above his head, preventing him from reaching down and touching himself until the very last possible moment, so that the second he does so, he comes almost immediately with a satisfyingly deep and guttural groan.

Afterwards, Harvey holds him close, alternately kissing him gently on the mouth and nuzzling his nose against his jaw and neck. He feels his own heart swelling, and he finds himself wanting – no _needing_ – to tell Mike how very much he means to him, but at the same time not wanting, not even daring, not even for a second, to actually commit those feelings to words.

Although he'd fully intended on going home that night, Harvey nevertheless accepts Mike's invitation to stay, and they do end up talking, or rather Mike talks, about his parents and his Grammy, and Harvey listens, really listens, prompting gently when necessary, but not interrupting and certainly not supplying patronising replies or empty platitudes. He doesn't even comment when Mike confesses how much he misses Trevor.

"Everyone leaves me in the end," Mike says sadly, and although Harvey doesn't actually contradict him, he does pull him into another warm, comforting embrace and he holds him closely while allowing the younger man to grieve against his shoulder. 

In the night, he awakens, feeling the bed growing cold beside him, and he gets up, following the light and rubbing his eyes sleepily to see Mike leaning against the sink in the bathroom, gulping down pills with large mouthfuls of water and grimacing at the bitter aftertaste the medicine leaves on his tongue.

"Those the meds the doctor gave you?" Harvey asks, leaning in the doorframe.

"Er … yeah," Mike replies. He quickly takes another tablet from the blister pack and gulps it down with water before stuffing the packet back into the bathroom cabinet.

"Head bad?" he asks as Mike rinses his glass and places it back on the shelf. He suddenly feels guilty, as if he suspects either the vigorous sex they'd enjoyed earlier, or pushing Mike to talk, might have instigated another one of his headaches, but Mike shakes his head.

"Preventative," he says. "I'm okay."

"Good," Harvey says. "Then come back to bed."

"This is the best medicine," Mike later murmurs as he lies in Harvey's arms, trailing his fingers back and forth over the smooth warm skin of Harvey's chest. "You being here and holding me like this. You know, Harvey, sometimes I almost wish … "

He stops suddenly, falls silent, seems to be on the verge of continuing a moment later, but then he just snuggles closer instead, and although Harvey doesn't prompt him this time, he thinks he maybe knows what Mike is wishing for, because recently, he's started to find himself wishing for it too, especially in moments like these. He doesn't remember who the last person was where he'd actually told them he loved them – and besides, it was probably during sex and therefore he undoubtedly wouldn't have meant it anyway – but one thing he's fairly certain of now, is that if he ever finds himself in a position to say it again, in all likelihood it's Mike he'll be saying it to.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go from bad to worse for Mike at work, and Harvey finds himself being let down by Mike in more ways than one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is quite an angsty chapter, but I don't think there's anything that will particularly upset anyone. If there is, let me know and I'll add a note about it.

Looking up as he hears raised voices outside his office, Harvey closes his laptop lid and sits back in his chair. Through the glass wall, he can see Mike angrily gesticulating in his direction, and even though he'd told Donna he didn't want to be disturbed this afternoon, he thinks he knows what this is about and so he leans forwards and presses a button on the intercom.

"It’s okay, Donna," he says. "Let him in."

Mike bounces into the room a few seconds later.

"I can't believe you did that!" he exclaims. "I mean, you didn't even discuss it with me first. Have you any idea how embarrassed I was when Louis started dishing my case files out to the other associates? Well, have you? I'll tell you, shall I? _Fucking_ embarrassed, that's how!"

Harvey blinks slowly and presses his fingertips together as he leans his head to one side, but other than that he doesn't react, which only seems to infuriate Mike further. He had thought that he was doing the right thing when he'd negotiated a reduction in Mike's workload with Louis. What he hadn't been prepared for was for Louis to be quite so public in his handling of the situation.

Not in the mood to argue, he allows Mike to rant for a while before finally telling him to shut up and be grateful that he still has a job. As soon as he's said it, the hurt stare from Mike makes him wish he could take it back, but he can't and so he just sits tight while Mike stomps out.

"That was rather harsh," Donna comments from the doorway a few seconds later. Harvey beckons her in and asks her to close the door.

"It was true though," he says. "Mike isn't keeping up these days and he seems to be getting worse. It's for the best, although of course I wish Louis hadn't been such a prick about it."

"Have you tried talking to Mike to see what the problem is?" Donna asks. "Maybe you should lavish some more attention on the boy?"

Harvey glances at her sharply, and although there doesn't seem to be any hint of irony in her voice or face, he can never be sure with Donna. Anyway, how could she possibly know he'd literally spent hours, well, okay, maybe not hours – but certainly a lot of time – questioning Mike about what was going wrong with his work and offering ways to help him. Not as much time as he'd spent fucking him, of course, but Donna couldn't possibly know that, could she?

"Yeah, we've talked," Harvey sighs. "But I'm at a loss. I got him to see a doctor, but I don't know if it's the right kind."

If Donna's surprised at this statement, Harvey apparently admitting that he'd cared enough to find Mike a doctor, she doesn't show it. That's one of the many things he loves about Donna: nothing fazes her, ever.

"Meaning?" is all she says in response.

"Meaning I don't know if he's genuinely suffering from a physical condition or if it's mental."

"Well, he's not really been himself since his grandmother died," Donna says. "But that's normal, right? I mean, it hasn't been that long. It must be so hard when you haven't got anyone else to turn to."

Again, Harvey's eyes bore into Donna. Is she being sarcastic? Fishing for confirmation of what she already knows, that he and Mike are sleeping together? Or does she genuinely think Mike is all alone in the world? Harvey's not sure. One thing he is sure about though, is that he feels like beating the crap out of Louis Litt.

"Did you have to be quite so public with the redistribution of Mike's cases?" he questions tersely as he crashes unannounced into Louis's office.

"Harvey," Louis says blandly without taking his eyes off his laptop screen. "Come in, please. Take a seat, don't hold back. Get it off your chest, tell me what you're really feeling." 

"You completely humiliated him," Harvey accuses, totally ignoring what he sees as Louis's pathetic attempt at humour. "Way to kick a man when he's down, Louis. Good job!"

At that, Louis frowns and looks up.

"Look, Harvey," he says, pushing his laptop to one side and adopting an overly patient tone which sets Harvey's teeth on edge. "As far as the other associates are concerned, they already feel like they're doing Mike's work for him, so what was the point in hiding the fact that they genuinely are? In fact, we do need to discuss this further, because in their eyes, nothing is being done about the situation from a management point of view, which is seriously undermining my authority. Because I can't just turn round to them and justify it by saying he's having _headaches,_ can I? Because we all get headaches, Harvey, even you. You know, a lot of them hate him already because they see him as your favorite, and you can't even deny it either, because Mike Ross gets privileges that the rest of the herd don't, and he has done from day one."

At this, Harvey narrows his eyes. He'd heard there'd been some idle gossip from to time, even before he and Mike had become an item, jealous whispers of favoritism, but of course he'd always just disregarded it. Perhaps now, he – 

"You said you'd speak to him," Louis says, cutting into his thoughts, and now it's _his_ voice which takes on the accusing tone. 

"I did," Harvey confirms. "But it looks like I'll need to speak to him again."

 

Although he doesn't actually see Mike for the rest of the day, it's still a shock to Harvey when he waits in the restaurant that evening and Mike doesn't actually show up, either late or otherwise. He tries his cell a few times to no avail. Several unanswered calls and numerous texts later, and not knowing whether to be more worried than angry, he takes a cab to Mike's apartment, races up the stairs and starts banging loudly on the door.

"Where the fuck were you?" he demands when it finally creaks open and Mike's weary face appears in the gap. "I waited a whole hour at the restaurant for you."

"What do you want?" Mike says. His eyes don't quite meet Harvey's, and from the downturn of his mouth, Harvey can see he's still angry.

"You stood me up," Harvey accuses.

"You let me down," Mike shoots back.

"What? By trying to help you?"

He moves forward to try to gain entry to the apartment, but Mike firmly stands his ground. 

"Aren't you gonna let me in?" Harvey asks crossly. "Come on Mike, we need to sort this out. We need to talk."

"I'm not in the mood to talk to you right now," Mike says.

Just then, Harvey hears someone cough inside the apartment, quite clearly a man's cough, and a bright spark of jealousy spikes through him from the inside out. "Who the hell is that?" he demands. 

Mike's face, usually always such an open book to Harvey, for once remains tightly closed. "Just a friend," he says.

"You don't have any friends," Harvey says rather harshly. "Oh, but don't tell me," he continues, rolling his eyes in disgust. "The prodigal son returns, right? Well, halle-fucking-lujah." 

He pushes his way into the apartment, and sure enough, it's Trevor who's currently occupying Mike's couch. Dressed in a black shirt and black jeans, and with his dark hair slicked back, he sprawls there like some gigantic spider.

"Hey, Harvey," he says, cheerfully raising his bottle of beer. "Good to see ya."

Completely ignoring him, Harvey grabs Mike and propels him towards the tiny kitchenette. 

"Ouch," Mike complains, yanking his arm away and rubbing his elbow where Harvey had grasped it too tightly. "What the fuck?"

"I might say the same," Harvey hisses. "That prick could have ruined your life. I thought you were done with him?"

"He came to apologise," Mike says defensively, still rubbing his arm, although it's pretty obvious that he's exaggerating for effect. "I wasn't going to let him in at first, but then I thought it was time we sorted things out. He is my oldest friend after all, and right now I need all the friends I can get."

Harvey clicks his tongue in annoyance at this implied criticism of himself, but he manages to maintain an outward show of calm. Just. Scrutinising Mike's face, he can't tell if the younger man is doing this simply to wind him up, or whether his heightened emotional state after his grandmother's passing has led to genuine forgiveness for Trevor. 

Either way, he won't stand for it.

"Trevor, I think you should leave," he says, whipping his body round to face the young man on the couch. Trevor stands, somewhat aggressively Harvey thinks, but before either of them has had the chance to say another word, Mike physically steps in between them.

"He's not going anywhere, Harvey," he says firmly. "We were about to ring out for pizza. You're very welcome to join us, but – "

"No thanks," Harvey replies. He crosses quickly to the door, and after a second, Mike trails after him somewhat miserably, but when he sees Harvey turning back to face him, he lifts his chin with an air of defiance.

"You do know you're making a big mistake?" Harvey asks him. He waits for an answer but Mike says nothing. "Okay, have it your own way," he growls, "but you and I have court at nine o'clock sharp tomorrow morning. Don't get drunk, don't get stoned, and for God's sake, don't let _him_ talk you into doing anything remotely stupid. Last but by no means least, don't be late. Got it?"

Mike hesitates then nods, after which it takes all of Harvey's strength to turn his back and leave. 

Out on the sidewalk, he paces up and down, glancing up in agitation every thirty seconds or so at the amber glow of Mike's apartment windows, but by the time his cab rolls up to the curb, he's starting to calm down – at least a little. 

It's not as if he doesn't know that it's probably very unhealthy for Mike to have so few relationships in his life. Trevor's a complete loser in every sense of the word, but there's no denying that, regardless of his wrongdoings, he's still Mike's oldest friend, and so just maybe for Mike he represents the only remaining link to a past that must seem like it's drifting further and further away after recent events. 

By the time he lands up at his condo, Harvey's all but convinced himself that it might be good for Mike to spend some time with someone other than himself outside of office hours, although the thought of it being _Trevor_ still makes his jaw clench and he finds he can't really settle to anything. Hungry after missing his meal in the restaurant, he makes himself a beef sandwich and eats it in front of the TV, but he finds he keeps thinking about what Mike and Trevor might be getting up to. Not that he doesn't trust Mike to be faithful – he does – and anyway, Mike has assured him that nothing like _that_ has ever happened between him and Trevor, not even at the experimental teenage-fumble stage, and Harvey believes him. It's just that Mike has been so off with him just lately that he can't help worrying. 

After flipping idly through the TV channels and finding nothing can hold his attention while he's in this mood, Harvey takes out his cell phone with the intention of calling or at least texting Mike, but then he finds himself calling Louis instead.

"Harvey, it's eleven o'clock at night," the waspish voice answers. "What the hell do you want from me that can't wait until morning?"

Harvey almost hangs up at this point, but he wants answers and therefore he forces himself to be polite.

"I'm sorry to phone so late," he says. "There's something I wanted to ask you." There's a pause in which he can tell Louis is waiting for the sarcastic punch line. When there isn't one, the other man sighs as he surrenders.

"How can I help you, Harvey?" 

"It's something you said about Mike the other day," Harvey says. "I can't think what it was now, but I remember thinking it was an odd thing to say at the time."

There's a silence during which Harvey can hear the air whistling in and out of the other man's nose, which usually would have irritated the hell out of him. Tonight though, he has other things on his mind.

"Louis?" he prompts. 

"Well, clearly I need a little more information than that," Louis replies. "To which particular conversation are you referring, exactly?"

Harvey clears his throat. "It was the one where we discussing his performance at work. I can't remember the precise words you used, but you said something like - like he's behaving _strangely_ , or his behaviour was … was … "

"Erratic?"

"Yes," Harvey says. "Yes, that's it. Erratic. What exactly did you mean by that, Louis?"

There's an amused pause. "Harvey, if you don't know then I can certainly suggest a really good online dictionary, or – "

"Louis," Harvey growls.

"Okay, okay. You want examples, right?" There's a pause while Louis thinks. "Well, Mike has always seemed different to the other associates, I guess," he says, "more kind of grounded, and seemingly more appreciative of the opportunities presented to him by the firm, but … "

"But what?"

"These days he's so unpredictable. I'd say it's almost like he's had a personality transplant at times. He's usually the extra tolerant type, you know? Too much so, I would have said, but these days his temperament seems to chop and change with the wind. Sometimes he's his usual, hardworking, accommodating self, but at others, well, it seems like he's becoming an arrogant little shit just like the rest of them."

"Well, that's not necessarily a bad thing, is it?" Harvey says somewhat hopefully. "The kid needed toughening up. I mean, look at the way he acted in the mock trial, for Chrissakes."

"It's not just that though, Harvey," Louis insists. "He seems to have developed a real temper that flares up out of the blue, and that was never Mike, and then sometimes he just sits there staring into space, and then he gets really mad when one of the others calls him out on it. And he's been forgetting things too. Yeah, you did hear that part right. Mike Ross _forgetting_ things."

After Harvey has thanked Louis for his input and the call has ended, he sits hunched forward on the couch, thinking about Mike and his beloved grandmother, and he remembers how the death of his own father had affected him. Not that he hadn't carried on just exactly the same at work when it had happened, because he had, but even he would have to admit that it had been a long time until he'd actually felt _himself_ again. 

So maybe all this stemmed from grief then? The headaches, the mood swings, the zoning out, the need to get back in with Trevor? 

It's possible, Harvey supposes.

As he sits there pondering, his phone vibrates to announce a message at midnight. It's from Mike. 

_Trevor's gone now,_ the text says. _Sorry about dinner. Was in a temper about what happened with Louis. Feeling better now. See u at court xxx_

Harvey can't help smiling with relief as he texts him back: _Get a good night's sleep. You'll need it._ He doesn't add any kisses though, since he's lost count of the times he's ordered Mike not add them to the texts he sends to him, especially the work related ones. Still, by the time he finally climbs into bed, he's feeling much better himself.

Unfortunately, his good mood doesn't last long.

"What the hell happened to you?" he shouts into his phone as he bounces out of court after the judge has just ruled in favour of opposing counsel, but he's so angry and feels so let down that he then hangs up without even realizing he's only been speaking to Mike's answer service. 

In the reception area at the end of the hallway, he sees Mike stumbling towards him.

"Harvey, I'm sorry," he wails, but Harvey pays him no heed and just keeps moving with long, quick strides instead. At the elevators, however, Mike catches up with him just as he steps into the car, but as the doors begin to slide shut, Harvey thrusts his hand between them and steps off.

"What the hell happened to you?" he repeats, but this time his anger has been replaced by at least some semblance of concern. 

"It's a nosebleed," Mike says. There's a bundle of folded Kleenex pressed to his nose, which unfortunately, judging by the bright red spreading stains, is still bleeding quite profusely.

"Well, I can see that. What happened? Don't tell me you got into another fight?"

Mike shakes his head. "It just suddenly started bleeding," he replies, his voice muffled behind the tissues. "I was in the taxi cab on the way here and it just started and wouldn't stop. The driver threw me out three blocks away, said he didn't want me bleeding all over his upholstery. I had to walk the rest of the way." 

"Why didn't you phone me?"

"I went and left my phone at home," Mike confesses sheepishly, "and I didn't have any change for the payphone either. Besides, you would have been in session by then." He gingerly removes the tissues, examines them, then quickly turns them over trying to find a fresh section to soak up the blood, and as he does so he sways a little on his feet. Realising that Mike's suddenly starting to list alarmingly over to one side, Harvey grabs him by the arm, admittedly more carefully than he had last night, and he leads him over to a nearby bench. 

"Sit," he commands before glancing about him. "Excuse me, miss?" he calls to a young woman in impossibly high heels, who's heading along the corridor towards them. "Is there a water cooler on this floor? My colleague's feeling unwell, and – "

"Er, sure," she says, glancing sympathetically at Mike. "I'll go get him a cup … and some more Kleenex would come in handy too, by the looks of things."

She's back quickly and Harvey flashes her a grateful smile as she hands the cup to Mike, along with a large handful of paper tissues.

"Pinch your nose, here," she says, demonstrating. "And lean forward a bit more. That's it. Do you want me to call somebody to help?" she asks, more to Harvey now than to Mike. "A first aider, perhaps? Maybe an ambulance even?"

It's Mike, however, who shakes his head. "I'll be okay," he insists. "Thank you."

"I do think you should get that looked at," the young woman advises, eyeing him doubtfully as fresh blood continues to soak into the folded tissues. "It doesn't seem to be stopping."

"I agree," Harvey says. "We should at least go and get you checked out."

"I'd rather just – " Mike starts to say, but then his eyes are closing and his hands drop, spilling both the water and the bloody tissues to the floor, and then he's falling forward as Harvey makes a frantic grab for him, catching him just in time to cradle him to the floor.

 

When Mike opens his eyes, it's to find himself in a pale room with seemingly the brightest lights he's ever seen in his life. "Fuck," he groans in protest, and then he's blinking as his eyes water before he turns his stiff neck to see a pair of anxious brown eyes watching him.

Harvey.

Mike tries to speak but it just comes out as a croak. His throat and mouth are so dry that when he tries to moisten his lips, his tongue feels rough against them, like sandpaper. Harvey lifts a cup and straw to Mike's mouth and he sucks on it gratefully, the cool water immediately helping to ease his raw throat.

"Easy, easy," Harvey warns when Mike splutters a little and coughs. "Don't take so much at once. Slow down."

"What happened?" Mike finally manages in a husky whisper.

"You don't remember?"

Mike thinks, his brow wrinkled. "My face hurts," he complains. 

"Well, it will do, I should think," Harvey says. "They had to perform an emergency nasal cautery procedure in the end, to stop the bleeding." 

Mike looks confused. "A - a what? What bleeding?"

"You suffered a severe nose bleed on your way to court this morning, then you passed out in the hallway and started choking on your own blood. You must remember that?"

"I – I had an accident?" Mike replies, although he still looks and sounds confused.

"You said your nose started bleeding in your cab," Harvey offers helpfully. "The driver made you get out and walk."

"Right," Mike says slowly, although Harvey's not sure if he actually remembers these events or is simply acknowledging Harvey's retelling of them. He closes his eyes and seems to slip into a doze for a while, only waking again when a nurse comes in to check his blood pressure, pulse and temperature.

"I'll tell the doctor you're awake now," she tells him, checking his I.V. is still working correctly, "and he'll come and see you pretty soon." 

"And then can I go home?" Mike pleads. His voice is husky and pathetic, so much so that it actually causes a spasm of pain to flare up in Harvey's chest.

The nurse smiles gently at him but she's professionally non-committal. "I'm not sure," she replies. "Best wait for the doctor." After finishing her checks and recording them on the file clipped to the end of his gurney, she bustles out again.

"I'm sorry I didn't make it to court on time," Mike says when they're alone again. 

"It doesn't matter now," Harvey says, shaking his head.

"But I let you down and I _am_ sorry. Did you – did you get the win anyway?"

Harvey's silence tells him all he needs to know.

"Ah, God, I'm sorry."

"Mike, it – it …" 

Harvey starts to speak but his voice cracks uncharacteristically and he stops. The memory of Mike lying on the floor with his chin and neck coated in fresh blood is all too sharp in his mind, as is the wet gurgle which had bubbled frothily in Mike's throat until he and the young woman who'd helped them had managed to reposition him onto his side. As they'd waited for the ambulance to arrive, Harvey had offered to pay to replace her clothing, which by then had been spattered with the bright red streaks of Mike's blood, as was his own. She'd refused, but he'd made a mental note of the name he'd seen on her I.D. tag, and had vowed he would send her something, some flowers maybe, to say thank you for her help. 

"Believe me, Mike," he says eventually "None of that matters now. I'm just glad if you're gonna be okay." 

He turns as the door opens once more and he recognises the doctor who enters. It's the one he'd spoken to not long after they'd arrived. Harvey stands up expectantly, hoping he's bringing good news for them both. 

"Hi, Michael," he says as he approaches the gurney. "Glad to see you're awake." He nods a greeting at Harvey who nods back. He turns back to Mike, his bald head gleaming under the bright lights, and his brown eyes, a shade lighter than Harvey's, twinkle kindly behind his steel-rimmed spectacles. "I'm Dr Harris. I treated you when you were first brought in. How are you feeling now. Any better?"

"A bit, yeah," Mike replies. His voice, still raw, has a distinct nasal twang to it. "Thanks."

He listens while the doctor explains how they'd had to suction out all the blood that had collected in his throat. "Which explains why your throat's feeling so sore," he says kindly, and then he briefly outlines the treatment Mike's received before he proceeds to run through a list of questions, checking the data on his clipboard against the answers Mike gives, first about his medical history, and then about the way he's feeling now compared to when he first regained consciousness. He then gently checks Mike's nose and throat, making all the right reassuring, comforting noises as he does so. 

"Will I be able to go home?" Mike asks hopefully, when he thinks the questions are finally over.

"Well, I'd like to keep you in overnight," the doctor replies, "just to be on the safe side. Sorry," he adds when he sees how Mike's face falls. "I _am_ satisfied though, that the emergency cautery procedure we performed has been completely effective, but I'm still not sure as to why the bleeding was so prolonged in the first place, or why you were unconscious for so long. I'd like to run a few scans and do some other tests before you leave tomorrow, if that's okay with you?"

Mike sighs. He looks at Harvey, who nods, and miserably Mike, in turn, nods at the doctor.

"Do you think these events might bear some relation to his headaches?" Harvey enquires. 

"They might do," Dr Harris says, frowning. He turns then to Harvey. "Actually, there _is_ something I need to ask Michael about the current treatment he's undergoing at the clinic you mentioned, Mr Specter. Do you – would you mind stepping out onto the corridor for a little while? So we can speak in private?"

Harvey's not looking at Mike at that moment, and so he doesn't notice the flicker of panic in Mike's eyes, but Dr Harris does and his frown deepens. 

"I'm sure Mike won't mind if I stay," Harvey says firmly. "Mike?"

Mike hesitates. "No, no, it's okay," he sighs, lowering his eyes. "He - he can stay."

The doctor looks doubtful for a second or two. "Okay," he says slowly. "If you're sure?"

Mike swallows painfully, then nods.

"Well," the doctor says, consulting his notes again. "Uh – Michael – Mike?" He raises his eyebrows as if seeking permission to call him by the name Harvey had used, and again Mike nods. "When you arrived in the E.R. this morning, we took a brief history from Mr Specter. He told us you were seeing –" He consults his notes briefly. "Uh, a Dr Baez, at the Columbia University Medical Center, and you're currently undergoing a course of treatment there. Is that right?"

"Yeah," Mike whispers. 

"Well, it's just that we've contacted them and they can't seem to find any records of any such treatment. In fact, they have no record of you being a patient there at all."

There's a long silence before Mike starts to mumble, "There must be some mistake …" He risks a glance at Harvey, but he already knows that the flush he can feel warming his cheeks has already given him away, especially when Harvey, hands in pockets, pulls himself up to his full height and stares at him for a long time, stares at him hard. 

Mike squirms under his piercing gaze before looking away.

"I … um, I haven't actually made an appointment yet," he confesses. "Well, I – I did, but I didn't show up on the day." His cheeks are fully flushed now and he looks down, away from Harvey's accusing glare and the doctor's sympathetic expression. "I was going to rearrange it … but … um …" His throat dries up once more and he desperately wants to rewind the clock to when Harvey was holding the straw to his mouth and he was sipping on the sweet, cool, soothing water.

"So you haven't actually had any of the tests, or been receiving any of the treatment for your headaches as Mr Specter described?" the doctor asks. "Mike, is that correct."

Mike, his lower lip starting to tremble, again nods his head.

The doctor looks from one man to the other. "Hmm, okay," he says thoughtfully. "Which is all the more reason for us to run our own tests, I suppose." He scratches a few words onto Mike's notes before looking at them both again. "Look, I can see you two probably have something you need to talk about," he says. "I'll go and sort out the paperwork for your overnight admission and we'll take it from there, okay? Oh, and Mike, are you happy to submit to us running a tox screen on the blood samples we took from you earlier? It'll just help us gain a better view of the overall picture. Is that okay?"

Silently, his eyes down, Mike nods again.

"Okay, then I'll be back very soon."

Once he and Harvey are alone together, Mike frets as a solid silence completely fills the room. It's oppressive, making him feel like he can't breathe, or even think, properly. 

"Harvey, say something," he eventually pleads. 

Letting out a deep sigh, Harvey drops back into his chair, but his mind is racing, racing, as the thoughts fly through his mind: his conversation with Louis about Mike's erratic behaviour; the zone-outs at his desk; his fight with Kyle; his poor time-keeping; his fuck-ups at work, and now this horrendous nosebleed, and he wonders how the hell he missed it for so long, for it all seems so fucking obvious now.

"How long, Mike?" he asks heavily. 

At this point, and despite his guilt at having lied about the clinic appointments, Mike looks puzzled. "How long what?" he croaks.

"How long have you been using?"

Mike blinks and his mouth falls open. "What? H – Harvey, _what_?" 

Harvey has to admit that Mike seems genuinely shocked, but he knows he can't let that fool him. He's been too much of a fool already, it seems.

"Look, don't play the innocent," he spits, "because in no way on God's earth are you ever going to convince me that _that_ was a normal nosebleed." 

Still feeling weak and groggy, Mike is slow to catch on, but finally he lifts a hand and gestures to his face. "You think that _this_ is because I'm doing drugs? Jesus, Harvey. I mean, _fuck._ Just what the hell do you think I am?" 

"I know you were an addict when I first met you," Harvey snaps.

Mike recoils as if he's been slapped, but he soon finds his voice. "I was _not_ an addict," he shouts, ignoring the pain in his throat. "You know how much I _hate_ it when you say that."

"Well, you sure as hell weren't Captain America." 

The look on Harvey's face as he says this shows such disgust that Mike falls back against the bank of pillows, fighting hard not to cry. "I haven't taken any drugs, Harvey," he says through gritted teeth. "I swear to you. I fucking _swear._ "

"And you expect me to believe you?" Harvey says coldly. His words cut deep and Mike flinches as his voice rises. "I mean, what else have you been lying to me about, besides going to the clinic, about your medication? And what the hell's in those pills I've seen you taking if they're not on prescription?"

"They're just Tylenol," Mike says. "For the headaches. Really, Harvey, you've got to believe me."

"I haven't _got_ to do anything," Harvey roars. Then he rolls his eyes, as he's seemingly struck by a startling realization. "Trevor," he says. "How fucking stupid am I? That's what he's doing back on the scene, isn't it? He's your supplier?"

By this time, the tears are rolling freely down Mike's face. Feeling too weak and too frustrated to defend himself any further, he simply pulls his knees up protectively to his chest and wraps his arms around them, burying his face against the scratchy hospital blanket. He doesn't even look up when the door opens, and he hears the doctor's angry voice asking Harvey to leave. 

"Whatever the hell is going on here will have to wait," he says. "I can't have my patient upset like this, not in his current condition."

"Don't worry, I'm going," Harvey growls back.

He's out of his seat and yanking open the door in less than a second, and the last thing he hears before he quickens his step out onto the corridor is Mike tearfully calling his name.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harvey struggles to come to terms with what he sees as Mike's betrayal of his trust. Meanwhile, things just keep getting worse for Mike in terms of his health.

Harvey goes straight home after leaving the hospital. Once there, he strips off all his soiled clothing – there's blood mixed with snot down one sleeve of his suit jacket, and dark crusts of dried blood on the front of his shirt – and he examines it with angry distaste. _That'll be hell to get out,_ he thinks as he wraps the items ready to be sent to the cleaners. _That's if they can get it out at all._

In the shower, he stands under the hottest spray he can tolerate as he sluices all the day's mess and sweat from his skin. It's much harder to clear his mind though, as the sound of Mike's voice wailing his name as he'd rushed away from him plays endlessly in his head, and however hard he tries, he just can't force it to stop. Neither can he ban the graphic images which play like a never-ending newsreel in his mind: Mike, wheezing and spluttering as he'd choked on his own blood on the dark blue carpet at the court; Mike, with bloody gauze taped to his face, lying pale and still on the gurney as the paramedics had wheeled him out to the waiting ambulance; Mike, waking up in the E.R., his chin and throat still crusted with flecks of dried blood, even though the nurses had done their best to clean him up.

These images still continue to bother Harvey as he dries himself off and dresses in sweat pants and a faded tee, before taking his laptop over to the couch. Usually so calm, so cool, so in control, Harvey would be the first to admit that he'd panicked when Mike had collapsed, because surely there was nothing worse than seeing someone you –

Frowning, he stops and checks himself. 

The word he'd been thinking of wasn’t a word he really wanted to use in this situation, even though it had actually been at the forefront of his mind. No, _love_ wasn't a word he wanted to use at all, particularly not now.

He opens the file in his hands, but even after a short while the words start to blur in front of his eyes as his thoughts take a new turn, and as his anger flares, his eyes narrow and his jaw begins to work itself furiously as his memory throws up some of the conversations he's recently had with Mike.

"Want me to come with you?" he'd offered, after Mike had told him he'd made an appointment with the doctor Harvey had recommended.

"No, it's fine," Mike had replied. "Thanks, but you know how they love to you make wait in these places. You'll be bored to death." And then, when he'd returned to the office after one of his so-called visits: "Oh, everything's fine," he'd told him breezily, like it was all just something and nothing. "The doctor said my headaches are most probably caused by stress after, well, you know, Grammy and everything." Harvey had nodded sympathetically, and later that night he'd cooked for Mike and coddled him, and after they'd made love he'd lifted his arm for him to scoot beneath it, and he'd pulled him close to his chest and kissed him tenderly before they'd fallen into a blissful sleep, all wrapped up in one another's arms.

What a fool he's been, he thinks now.

As the evening wears on, Harvey finds himself growing more and more restless and less able to concentrate on anything remotely constructive. The stack of files on the coffee table sits untouched; his phone, switched off, languishes beside it, and by the time the windows begin to darken, he's more than half way through a bottle of his favorite scotch.

Picking up the phone and flipping it over in his palm, he wonders whether he should switch it on. After all, there are most probably messages he should view, from Jessica maybe, and certainly from Donna, because although Harvey hadn't informed anyone else at the office about their little trip to the E.R., he'd had to let her know why he wouldn't be coming back to the office after court. She definitely would've wanted to know what was happening and he felt guilty that he hadn't been in touch.

Idly rubbing his thumb back and forth over the phone's _on_ button, he wonders if possibly Mike will have sent him any texts. On the nights that they don't see each other, and there are still plenty of them although they have been growing steadily fewer and farther in between, he and Mike usually send plenty of texts back and forth between one another. Sometimes they're just quiz-type questions, film trivia and so on, and sometimes they're pretty damned filthy and along the lines of _Really can't wait to suck you off!_ That kind, Harvey carefully deletes after he's read and re-read them, and sometimes jacked off to them, and sometimes he sends equally filthy ones back, with the _I need to fuck you so bad,_ probably being the most common type. The texts that really bother him though, are the ones that Mike sends along the lines of _I miss you_ and _I wish we could be together more often,_ but not because Harvey doesn't feel the same, but actually because he does and sometimes that frightens him more than anything.

Right now he just feels angry though. He feels that all that was good between him and Mike has been lost, because he hates being lied to, he really, really _hates_ it, and the fact that it's Mike who's lied to him makes it a hundred times worse, because he thought Mike respected him more than that. Hell, he thought Mike _trusted_ him more than that, and it's that which bothers him more than anything, so much more than the actual drug-taking itself. That of course, and the fact that Mike had turned to Trevor and not Harvey himself when he'd needed someone. God, that hurt most of all. If Mike had needed help getting over his grandmother's death, surely he could have talked to Harvey? There was no need for him to turn to drugs and to _Trevor_ , for God's sake, and besides, what the hell sort of drugs must he have been shoving up his nose anyway, to cause such a catastrophic bleed as that? That E.R. doctor, Harris, he'd even asked Harvey if Mike was a regular drug user, but of course he'd told him no.

Yet again, Harvey curses himself for being such a fool.

He sleeps badly for the first half of the night, and finds himself wide awake and in the kitchen at just after three, warming a mug of milk in the microwave. When either he or Mike stayed over at each other's apartments, Mike would occasionally suffer from a nightmare, and if he did, he'd beg Harvey to bring him a cup of warm milk with two teaspoons of sugar, just the way his Grammy used to make it. Harvey would roll out of bed with a groan and make a big fuss, but in reality, he loved the sweet, milky smell on Mike's breath afterwards as he hugged him close, stroking his back and making soothing noises until they both went back to sleep.

Sitting at the table in the kitchen now, he cradles the mug in his hands as he sips his milk. In the tired blur of the night, his anger is all but gone, but what it's been replaced with seems so much worse. It's such a crushing sense of disappointment, such a feeling of loss, that he makes the drink last as long as possible, dreading the thought of going back alone to his cold, empty bed.

"This is your own fault," he tells himself as he rinses the mug and places it in the dishwasher. Because deep down, he knows that he really should never have let this thing with Mike carry on as long as it has, even though after their first kiss in the elevator on their way up to the office after a particularly thrilling victory in court, he hadn't so much as looked at anyone else. That first, heady kiss had been hot and rough, teeth and lips clashing, chests pressed together and fingers groping, but later on, so many of their kisses had been lingering, tender, almost as if – as if they'd been falling in –

 _No,_ Harvey decides, as he slams the dishwasher door shut. He won't dwell on it, he _won't._

By the time he stumbles back to bed, dawn is already beginning to turn the darkness a lighter shade of gray, but nevertheless, he falls into a fairly deep sleep, not waking up until well after seven. Dragging himself out of bed, he attempts to liven himself up with another shower, a much colder one this time, and then he shaves and dresses himself immaculately in a dark three piece suit. However, the persistent smell of sweetened milk pulls him up short when he crosses to the kitchen to make some coffee. He closes his eyes, inhaling the scent, and not even the strong smell of smooth Italian roast can later stop his heart from painfully thudding.

As he waits for Ray, and despite the crisp cool scent of the morning air, his senses are again bombarded with vivid memories of the images, sounds and smells of the previous 24 hours, and it's all blood and tears and anguished cries and milk, and suddenly he knows what he wants to do, it's just _there_. And it's not what he'd been planning either, it's not about ignoring Mike, or even turning the clock back to _before Mike._

No.

He can't let this go. He can't let _Mike_ go. Not like this, not when they've come this far already. How can he? And he can help him, he knows he can, even if he doesn't want to be helped. He wants to do it, he needs to. It's _Mike._

His pulse quickening now he's made up his mind, Harvey climbs into the back of the car, and he texts Donna, asking her to cancel his morning schedule. She texts back immediately saying _I already did when you didn't show up at 7.30_ and _How's Mike?_ and _Why didn't you reply to my texts or calls last night?_ She sends a couple more but eventually stops when he doesn't reply.

"I heard about what happened," Ray says, which explains why he isn't at all surprised when Harvey asks to go to straight to the hospital, and although Harvey doesn't ask how he knows, he guesses it's Donna. "Is the kid okay?" Ray asks, as he completes a U-turn at the first available opportunity.

"He will be," Harvey says. His voice cracks a little and he coughs into his fist as he sees Ray curiously watching him in the rear view mirror as he waits at the traffic lights, but Harvey drops his eyes and pretends to be absorbed in reading the emails on his phone, and as the lights change the car thankfully moves on.

At the hospital, Ray asks if he should wait but Harvey says it's fine, that he'll call him if he needs him, or if the driver's otherwise engaged, he'll take a cab, and besides, he has no idea how long he's going to be. Ray beeps his horn as he leaves, and then Harvey heads to the E.R. quickly. He fully expects, of course, that they'll have moved Mike up onto one of the wards, but at least the E.R. staff should be able to steer him in the right direction, and by pure chance, one of the first people he sees when he pushes open the double doors to the department is Dr. Harris.

"What do you want?" the doctor says, eyeing Harvey coldly when, upon hearing someone behind him calling his name, he turns and realizes who it is.

"I need to see Mike," Harvey says, marching up without bothering to re-introduce himself. "Mike Ross? You treated him yesterday. Yeah, yeah, I know," he continues, waving his hand dismissively. "I was out of order yesterday, but I've totally got my shit together now. I just really need to see him. Where is he?"

The doctor frowns. "I'm sorry, Mr. Specter," he says, "but you're too late," and for just one horrible, awful moment, Harvey thinks that he means something else, that something unspeakably terrible has happened, and his stomach drops. 

"I'm sorry, what?" he chokes out.

"Mike discharged himself late last night."

Harvey finds himself struggling for a moment, his relief mixing with his sudden incredulity, but then he shakes his head. "And you – you just let him go?" 

"Well, I could hardly stop him," the doctor replies frostily. "He was free to leave any time he chose, after all. Of course we warned him he was leaving wholly against medical advice, but he signed a release form to say he was taking full responsibility for his actions. Look, I know it's not my place to say this, but maybe if you'd been a bit more supportive –"

"Actually, no, it's not your place," Harvey interrupts, agreeing, "but just so you know, I'm not going to leave Mike struggling alone with this. I'm gonna try and persuade him to join a rehab program, hopefully today if I can."

At this, the doctor frowns again and he stares hard at Harvey. "Mr Specter, I think it'd be better if you came along with me to my office," he says. 

Harvey frowns too as he's impatient to leave now. Mike's most probably at home, hopefully not with Trevor – please God, not with Trevor – and he doesn't want to waste any more time, but Dr. Harris is insistent, and once they're in his office and he offers Harvey a seat, Harvey reluctantly takes it, tapping his foot impatiently, already anxious to be gone.

"Look, normally I wouldn't dream of breaking patient confidentiality like this," Dr. Harris explains as he closes the door, "but it seemed very important to Mike that you believe him, so …"

He reaches over to where a stack of files waits on his desk to be signed off, digs around in it for a moment or two, and then pulls out a piece of yellow paper. "After you left," he says, "Mike was in a really bad way, so much so that we had to sedate him for a while."

Harvey raises his eyebrows at this new piece of information, but the doctor quickly explains.

"He was crying so hard, I was afraid his nose would start haemorrhaging again," he says. "But look, the point is that he wouldn't speak to anyone at first, but later, when he'd finally calmed down enough, he told me you'd accused him of using and that's when I realised that you probably thought he'd been insufflating cocaine or some other drug and that was why his nose had bled the way it did." He pauses. "To be fair," he says, "it _was_ one of the main things I was considering as the most probable cause of the bleed when I first started treating him."

Harvey wonders where the doctor is going with all this. "Go on," he prompts, frowning.

"Well, look at this," Dr. Harris says. He holds out the yellow paper, and Harvey takes it. At first he's not sure what he's looking for, and then, when he realizes, he closes his eyes briefly as intense feelings of both relief and guilt wash over him simultaneously. 

"Negative?" he asks quietly. "The tox screen was completely clear?"

"For everything," Dr. Harris confirms. "No amphetamines, no cocaine, no barbiturates, no phencyclidine, no opiates, no nothing. Not even so much as the smallest trace of cannabis, although he did tell me he used to smoke. In fact, the only drugs Mike's been taking on a fairly regular basis are of the wholly legal, over the counter pain-killing type, and whilst some patients have been known to abuse such medicines, I saw no evidence of anything like that in him at all."

Again, Harvey closes his eyes, but unfortunately all he sees behind them is a frightened, hurting kid, who's sobbing and clutching his knees and desperately begging Harvey to believe him, while he, Harvey, just railed at him and then deserted him, and so he very quickly opens them again.

"So what did cause that bleed then?" he asks, struggling now to meet the doctor's eye.

"We didn't get the chance to run any of the other tests," Dr. Harris says, "so my honest answer is that I'm not really sure. His Chem 7 was mostly fine, and we'd ruled out local factors, as well as a number of systemic factors. He _was_ showing up as mildly anemic but he was adamant that that was his first and only nosebleed of this type. He was booked in for a CT scan this morning but of course we never got that far. Look, Mr Specter, if you are really serious about helping him, then I'd be grateful if you could persuade him to just come back and take the extra tests as planned, just to be on the safe side."

"I definitely will," Harvey promises. He stands up abruptly and holds out his hand, and after a second's hesitation, Dr. Harris reaches out his own hand to give it a firm shake. 

Out on the sidewalk, Harvey calls Ray, but unfortunately he's already on another job on the other side of town, and so he quickly jumps a yellow cab. On his way to Brooklyn, he thinks about texting Mike, but then he thinks a face-to-face apology is his best bet. He asks the cab driver to hurry up, growing more and more anxious and frustrated as the morning traffic continues to build.

After banging on the door to Mike's apartment and yelling his name, he impatiently digs out his keys. Mike had given him a key to his apartment, not so very long ago in fact, and although he'd thanked him as he'd attached it to his fob along with his own keys, he hadn't offered Mike the same privilege. Mike had said it was no big deal, but Harvey had thought he'd seen a glimmer of disappointment on his face, nevertheless. Until this moment, he hadn't given it another thought, but right now he feels he'd do anything to see Mike smiling at him instead.

Pushing these thoughts out of his mind, he opens the door and once inside the tiny apartment, it takes him precisely ten seconds to establish that Mike isn't home. He has been there at some point though, and just recently by the looks of things. His rumpled bed, rarely made, is no indication of whether or not it's been slept in, but the bathroom is still warm and steamy, as if someone had taken a shower within the last hour, and a quick inspection of the clothes hamper in the corner reveals a wrinkled blood-stained shirt. Mike's blue tie, one of Harvey's favorites despite its skinny style, is so blood-soaked that it's clearly ruined, is lying curled in the trash can under the sink.

In Mike's closet, he counts five suits, plus the blood-caked one thrown over the back of the couch makes six. Therefore, he quickly deduces, Mike must be currently wearing the seventh suit of the seven he owns.

"Don't tell me the idiot's gone to work," he says out loud, but to confirm he whips out his phone, texting both Donna and Louis Litt in quick succession. Again he's reluctant to phone Mike, or even to text him – the feeling that he needs to talk to him face to face first is strong – and as he stands there, debating with himself, a text from Donna flies back, with one arriving from Louis a few minutes later. 

_Yes, he's here,_ Donna's text confirms. _Looking pretty miserable, though. And should he really be in work after yesterday? Why does big bad Harvey always have to kick the puppy so hard?_

In other circumstances, he might have been amused by this, but instead it just makes him sigh.

Louis's text simply says: _Yes, although why he bothers turning up to work these days is another question. May as well be home in bed for all the effect he's having._

By this, Harvey is incensed, although he quickly talks himself out of sending a pointed reply. After all, maybe Louis doesn't even know that Mike was hospitalized yesterday, or that late last night he'd discharged himself wholly against medical advice? Besides, how can he possibly criticise anyone else after the things he himself has said and done? After all, Mike had been telling him the truth and he hadn't believed him – well, okay, maybe not about the doctor's appointments, or hell, maybe not even about the eye test for all Harvey knows, but he'd definitely been telling the truth about the drugs: the doctor had proved it, and so had the packets of pills Harvey had discovered in Mike's bathroom cabinet before he'd called for another taxi. They'd been nothing more than Tylenol, exactly as Mike had said.

Suddenly, Harvey realizes that he no longer cares that Mike lied about the appointments, or even that he sought solace in Trevor. These things are trivial, he decides, especially when compared to what really matters, and what really matters is that Mike knows how sorry he is about yesterday, and so as his taxi nears the Pearson Hardman building, he finally decides to send a text to Mike after all.

 _I'm so sorry I didn't believe you,_ he types. _Please, Mike, please forgive me._ He hesitates, before adding two kisses, hesitates again and then deletes one of them, before pressing _send_.

The first thing he does is go straight up to his own office, half expecting – hoping, at least – for Mike to be sprawled on his couch waiting for him, or sitting at his desk, idly tossing a baseball up into the air. He looks forward to telling Mike he should be at home resting, and that that's where he's going to go right now, in Harvey's company of course. His office though, is disappointingly empty. 

"Seen Mike?" he asks Donna, but she shakes her head.

"Not since first thing this morning," she says. Her phone rings and she answers it. Harvey is in the process of checking his cell phone for a reply from Mike when he detects a distinct change, not just in Donna's tone of voice, but in her whole demeanour. 

"What is it?" he hisses, leaning towards her. "What's wrong?"

She shushes him with a wave of her hand, but he can see from her frown that she's worried.

"Donna?"

She hangs up. "That was Rachel," she says, "Mike's in his cubicle but there's a problem. He's really sick, apparently. You know, I told him he didn't look – Harvey, what's wrong? Harvey?" But Harvey is already hurrying away from her, and she follows behind him, almost running in her heels in order to keep up with his long-legged strides. 

On the way, they meet Louis as he rushes headlong towards them.

"Oh, thank God you're here," he pants. "Harvey, it's Mike. He's not well at all. He's been asking for you."

"What's wrong with him?" Harvey says, not breaking his stride as Louis turns and trots after him. He half expects Louis to gesture to his nose and start talking about a nosebleed.

"It's some sort of headache," Louis says, panting to keep up. "But he's in a lot of pain with it, but before that he was behaving ... strangely." 

"What exactly do you mean?" Harvey demands, but he quickens his pace rather than wait for an answer, and when he arrives at the bullpen, he sees a small semi-circle of people gathered around Mike's cubicle. Rachel is next to him, her hand on his back. She's holding out a glass of water to him, but Mike just sits as if he's ignoring her, his elbows on the desk and his head in his hands.

"Okay, okay, break it up," Harvey says, striding up and sending the other associates scattering back to their own desks until only he, Donna, Louis and Rachel remain. "Mike, are you okay?" he asks. "Is it another headache?"

Mike doesn't answer and Harvey looks at Rachel. "What's wrong?" he asks her. "He didn't get another nosebleed, did he?"

She shakes her head. "I don't think so," she says. "He just said his head was hurting first thing and that he felt a bit dizzy. He took some painkillers but it just seemed to keep on getting worse." She lowers her voice a little. "He – he's not himself, Harvey," she says worriedly. "There's something not right with him at all."

"What do you mean?"

"He seems really confused."

"Explain."

"It was – like he didn't know where he was, or what day it was even. And he was saying all this stuff ... about _you._ " She says this last part really quietly, and she lowers her eyes to the floor as if she's embarrassed.

"Stuff?" he asks. "What do you mean? Define _stuff_?"

She shrugs. "Personal stuff," she says, blushing.

 _Oh God, she knows,_ Harvey thinks frantically, but then he hears a groan from Mike, and he suddenly realizes he doesn't care what the hell she knows, or indeed if she knows _everything._ More than anything, he just wants Mike to be well and to have the chance to hold him in his arms once more.

"Mike?" he asks gently.

There's no response at first. 

"Mike? Mike, it's Harvey. You okay?"

Mike stirs a little. "Hurts," he moans. 

"Where, buddy? Where does it hurt? Can you show me?"

"Just … just hurts."

Harvey glares at the people standing around, watching. "Why didn't anyone contact me sooner?" he demands.

"To be honest, the other associates thought he was faking," Louis says guiltily, "and I have to admit, Harvey, so did I." He shrinks then from Harvey's glare, and then Harvey turns back to Mike, tapping him gently on the shoulder. 

"Mike, can you lift your head up for me?" he says. "Look at me, Mike. Mike? Can you look at me, please?"

Mike tries, he really does, but he frowns against the light and drops his eyes. "Hurts too much," he moans again.

Harvey shakes his head. "You should've stayed at the hospital," he says. "Come on, I'm taking you back there right now."

Ignoring the curious stares of the people around him at his words, Harvey tries to hook his hands under Mike's arms in order to pull him to his feet. "Come on, Mike," he says, struggling as Mike proves almost to be a dead weight. "Louis, can you help me?" 

"Just take me home," Mike mumbles. "Take me home, Harvey and make love to me. We'll make love all day and all night and – "

"Mike!" Harvey glances around them, embarrassed, and judging by the shocked looks on their faces, it seems both Louis and Rachel definitely heard it, although he's not so sure about the others. Donna, of course, doesn't react in the slightest, and if his arms hadn't already been holding Mike up at that moment, Harvey feels sure he would have hugged her.

"Please, Harvey," Mike moans, his voice louder now in protest as he's dragged to his feet. "Take me home. Just take me home, please and hold me, I just want you to hold me. Please."

Harvey hears a snigger from one the associates behind them and he grits his teeth, more with anger and embarrassment than the effort of hauling Mike's arm up over his shoulder as he tries to pull him along. "Come on, Mike," he groans, but Mike just sags heavily against him, barely able to stand as his head flops over onto Harvey's shoulder.

"I think we should call 911," Rachel says worriedly. "Harvey, he looks bad, really bad. He wasn't like this before."

"It's okay, I've got him," Harvey insists. "Louis, come on! " But Mike stumbles and crashes heavily against him, dragging his arm away from Louis as he presses his hand to his forehead. "Hurts," he moans again. 

Harvey gasps as Mike, now totally unable to support himself, grows even heavier, and as the younger man's knees buckle completely, Harvey cries out in anguish as they both slither to the floor.

"Rachel, make that call," Donna says sharply. "Now!" and a frightened looking Rachel frantically presses the buttons on her phone before holding it to her ear. 

"Hurts," Mike moans again. He's lying on the floor between the desks now, curled on his side, his left arm coiled around his head as he grasps it in a vain attempt to alleviate the pain. "Help me," he moans. "Harvey, please." His skin is ashen now, so pale and sweaty, and his eyes are creased tightly against the pain.

"You're gonna be okay, Mike," Harvey says, with much more conviction than he currently feels. "We're getting an ambulance and they'll be here soon. They're gonna take good care of you, I promise." He moves closer, and before he knows what he's doing, he's taking Mike's right hand firmly in his own and lifting it to his mouth, and he's kissing his fingers gently, not caring what anyone around him thinks anymore. Fuck, they can think what the hell they like, just as long as Mike's gonna be okay, and that he knows he's right there beside him and that he cares. "I'm here, Mike," he says, bending over him and squeezing his hand as he hears Mike groaning his name. "I'm right here. Help's on its way, kid, okay? Soon, Mike, they'll be here very soon."

"Ambulance is on its way," Rachel assures him, nodding. "ETA seven minutes."

"I'll go down to the front of the building," Louis says. "Show them exactly where we are," and Donna nods at him gratefully as she kneels down beside Harvey next to Mike and tries to soothe him with comforting words and soft touches.

Mike continues to mumble under his breath and thinking he hears his own name again, Harvey leans down towards him. "I'm here, Mike," he says softly, bending low. "I'm right here."

"M'sorry, Harvey," Mike whispers. He's slurring his words now, but Harvey can still make them out. "M'sorrysorrysorry." 

"Don't be sorry," Harvey says earnestly. "I'm the one who's sorry. I am Mike, I mean it. When you're better, we'll make everything right between us, okay? I promise. Things will be good again – even better than they were, I promise you they will. I promise."

Mike takes a shallow breath, his lips moving feebly, but then he cries out as another spasm of pain rocks through him, and whatever else he's trying to say is lost in his agonised sobs as he curls himself up into a tight fetal ball. Seconds later, however, he quickly begins to lose consciousness, and then, as his body goes limp, his grip on Harvey's hand gradually loosens. Harvey refuses to let go though, and when the ambulance crew finally arrives a few minutes later, Donna has to prise Mike's hand out of his in order to pull him out of the way, so that the paramedics can get in close enough to do their work.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's now two weeks since Mike collapsed in the office. Harvey struggles to cope with the aftermath.

"How is he, Donna? Is he coping any better?"

Jessica Pearson's voice is steady, calm and concerned as she watches Harvey. Sitting alone in his office, he clearly isn't working though; instead, he's leaning back in his chair, seemingly lost in thought as he stares through the window at the bright Manhattan skyline while absent-mindedly rolling a baseball backwards and forwards between his palms. 

Donna follows the other woman's sympathetic gaze through the glass. "Not really," she replies, turning back to Jessica. The older woman raises her eyebrows and Donna shrugs sadly. "At first I kept telling him to stay home and rest," she says, "but at least if he's here in the mornings I can keep an eye on him and make sure he eats something before he heads out to the hospital. For the first week, he was just like a zombie. He didn't sleep or eat, and he hardly went home at all. He just sat there at Mike's bedside day after day, willing him to wake up."

"I heard you were there with him for most of that time." 

Donna shrugs again. "What else could I do?" she says. "He needed me."

Jessica smiles warmly. "Not everyone is so loyal," she says. "Harvey is lucky to have you on his side."

Donna returns the smile, but then they both turn to look back at Harvey's morose and lonely figure, and their serious expressions return. It's been so eerily silent in and around his office, and it's this that Donna has found especially unnerving, particularly as Harvey hasn't placed a single record on his turntable in almost two weeks.

"And how is Mr Ross?" Jessica asks gently. "Any improvement?"

Donna's nervous eyes flick back towards Harvey, as if she's suddenly afraid he'll overhear. "He got a message to say that they're going to try and take him off the ventilator again today," she says in hushed tones. "Fingers crossed it goes well this time."

"Isn't Harvey going to be there?"

"I persuaded him not to go," Donna says. "The last time was so traumatic for him and I really don't want him to have to go through that again. We're both going to go for afternoon visiting later though, if that's okay with you?"

Jessica waves her hand. "Of course," she says, nodding graciously. 

Leaving Donna's cubicle, she taps gently on Harvey's office door. At first he doesn't even seem to notice, but she raps a bit harder, and he slowly turns round. She's shocked to see that he looks even worse than when she'd last seen him a couple of days ago, so pale and drawn, with deep, dark smudges under his eyes, and she can't help thinking that the vibrant, confident Harvey she knows so well looks like all the life has been suddenly sucked out of him.

As she approaches his desk, she sees it's strewn with a mess of paper, as if he'd at least attempted to do some work, although she knows for a fact that he's accomplished very little in the two weeks since Mike's collapse. Not that she'd expected him to, of course, and especially not after she'd discovered that the rumours about the two of them were true. 

"How are things?" she asks as she drapes herself elegantly across the chair opposite him. She can't help staring at the very unHarvey-like mess of files haphazardly stacked one on top of the other, and the various messages scrawled on numerous pieces of paper which litter the desk.

At first he doesn't answer and she sees his throat working, the muscles in his jaw contracting, and it looks almost painful as he tries to find the right words for an answer. Watching him struggle like this is hard for Jessica. She's used to the other Harvey, the brash, confident, cocksure fighter, who'll take on anyone and win. The man who sits before her, trying hard just to find words that won't make him cry, seems broken somehow. It just doesn't seem right.

Finally, he clears his throat. "They, uh … they're going to - um … " His voice soon trails off though, and he looks down in embarrassed defeat.

"Harvey, Donna already told me about what's planned for today," Jessica says softly. "You know I don't want you to worry about work, don't you? This is a difficult time. You should just do what you have to do."

As he looks up, gratitude and guilt flit across Harvey's face in equal measure, although the guilt eventually wins. "Jessica," he says, "you know, about the Mercure Hotels merger –"

"Oh, please, just forget about that," she replies, waving her hand dismissively. "Besides, I've already assigned someone else to the case. Look, Harvey, I just want you to concentrate on getting yourself through this, okay? And on Mike, of course. I need you both back, but only when you're ready."

She's rewarded with a small, grateful smile before the worried creases settle in his brow again, but she knows how thankful he is for her support. He'd told her so when he'd almost broken down in her office three days after Mike had been rushed to hospital, fiercely biting back his emotions as he'd resisted all her attempts to comfort him.

"You know, you could have told me about the two of you," she'd said, as she'd tactfully balanced a box of Kleenex on the arm of the couch beside him, although he'd stubbornly shunned it throughout. "I wouldn't have judged you."

"I know," he'd acknowledged, shrugging his shoulders, "but even to me it seemed like it was no big deal at first. It was only later that … " He'd paused, shaking his head a little, not really wanting to share his feelings about something which he'd be the first to admit had started out as fun and lust, but had quite clearly turned into something much more serious. "Well, you know," he'd said as he'd looked away, embarrassed. "It's nice to know that you're on my side though," he'd added "Not everyone is." 

"Harvey, no one else is judging you either," Jessica had assured him.

Harvey had nodded at this, even though he'd known it wasn't strictly true. Oh, of course he'd known that people will always gossip about office romances, and particularly about gay office romances, but when the couple in question is a senior partner and his entry level associate, and that senior partner just happens to be the ace closer Harvey Specter, it's apparently a different matter altogether. He's seen the way some people have been looking at him. Most have been kind and sympathetic, admittedly, offering sad smiles and quiet whispers of support, but he'd also seen the occasional malicious sneer as he'd walked by too, and heard some quite vicious muttered comments. At first he'd wanted to grab these people, throw them to the ground and punch their faces in, but now he just ignores them instead. 

After Jessica leaves, Harvey makes an attempt to clear his desk. He grows more and more nervous and agitated by the second, though, but just when he feels he can't stand the waiting any longer, the sight of Donna standing up and waving at him frantically through the glass catches his eye. 

"Harvey, pick up," she mouths urgently at him as she puts the call through.

"We have some very good news indeed," the doctor on the other end of the line says. It's Dr. Sonnenfeld, a quietly spoken neurovascular surgeon in her fifties, who, since the day Harvey had first met her in the hallway outside the operating room, had exuded a quiet calm which had inspired his confidence in her expertise. "I'm pleased to tell you that Mike is breathing on his own again."

Harvey momentarily closes his eyes, and the relief coursing through his veins makes him feel almost faint. He thanks her, although he somehow senses her reluctance to say any more at this point. He knows she doesn't like to make promises and so he doesn't ask, and besides, they've already been through everything with him more than once. He's well aware of how serious Mike's condition is.

He allows himself a small moment of excited happiness though, as he collects his belongings before he and Donna set off for the hospital. He also allows Donna to hold his hand for most of the quiet car journey across town, more because he knows it comforts _her_ to be comforting him than anything else. Ray, having greeted them both with a sympathetic smile, says very little to either of them, although he does play some relaxing tunes over the car's sophisticated sound system when they hit a pocket of traffic, and then he pats Harvey on the shoulder and wishes him luck when he drops them off.

Even though it's only been ten days since Mike was transferred to this specialist facility within the hospital grounds, Harvey already feels as if he's spent a lifetime within its pale, sterile walls. Each day, as he arrives for his visit, he approaches with a mixture of hope and trepidation, wondering if the medical staff will tell him that maybe Mike has fluttered an eyelid again, or perhaps that a nurse has seen him flex a finger, but usually what has taken place is that the doctors will have repeated the whole series of tests yet again, only to tell Harvey, when he asks, that there's been no change in Mike's condition at all. 

But now, at last, something hugely positive has happened.

At first glance, it seems there's nothing different at all about Mike's room. It's quiet and calm as usual, apart from the various machines whirring and beeping as they monitor Mike's vital signs, but then Harvey realises there's a very big difference, as the regular suck and gasp of the ventilator has now gone. Mike still lays silent and pale beneath the hospital sheets, but his face, thankfully, is now free from the mask and thick plastic breathing tubes, and all that remains is the much less obtrusive nasogastric feeding tube which delicately laces itself over his cheeks. At the moment he's lying on his back, but Harvey knows a physiotherapist will probably be in at some point to massage his limbs, and to work on some of his inactive muscles before altering his position in the bed. 

It's all so very different from the day Mike had been rushed back to the ER. 

There'd been so much noise that day, such a commotion. The panicked babble of the office had soon been replaced by the wailing of sirens, and then by paramedics shouting to the waiting emergency staff about the seizures Mike had suffered en route, and even as he'd watched them rushing him away, Harvey had seen Mike's limbs stiffening again, had heard another strangled groan tearing from his throat as he'd started to jerk violently on the hospital gurney. There'd been such a huge blur of frantic activity around him as the medical staff had attached monitors and inserted catheters, and he'd had to stand and watch helplessly, feeling alone despite the fact that Louis and Donna were flanking him, and he'd stood between them, grinding his teeth in an effort to hold back his tears.

As luck would have it, the attending physician on duty that day had again been Dr. Harris, and he'd offered Harvey a warm handshake when later, much later, he and another doctor, the grey-haired, kind-eyed Dr. Sonnenfeld, the one that Harvey had later come to trust so much, had taken him into the relatives room, to explain what was happening and what they had found when they'd finally managed to stop Mike's seizures long enough in order to complete their diagnostic scans and tests.

"What's wrong with him," he'd demanded.

"It's not good news, I'm afraid," Dr. Sonnenfeld had explained carefully, although she'd wanted to get straight to the point. "Mike's suffered a bleed in his brain."

"A stroke?" he'd gasped, but she'd shaken her head.

"Not a stroke as such, no," she'd said. "Have you heard of an AVM, an arteriovenous malformation?" He'd shaken his head, and she'd gone on to explain that, judging from the test results so far, it appeared that Mike had suffered a bleed from an arteriovenous malformation in the right frontal lobe of his brain.

"How serious is it?" he'd wanted to know. "Will he recover?"

"It can be very serious," had been her honest reply, "and as far as recovery is concerned, I'm afraid it's far too early to say."

The doctors had allowed him a few moments for this news to sink in. He'd been aware of Donna beside him, had heard her gasp, and he'd known she was most probably staring at him in horror, but he'd steadfastly ignored her, instead staring straight in front of him with his jaw locked and his fists gripped tightly against his thighs. 

"From the tests we've conducted so far," Dr. Sonnenfeld had gone on to explain, "we can see that Mike has been suffering from something called a nidus, which is an abnormal tangle of small blood vessels directly connecting some of his brain's arteries to its veins, and this has resulted in a kind of 'short circuit', which has most likely caused him some quite serious symptoms during recent weeks." 

"The headaches," he'd asked dully, and she'd nodded.

"Yes, the headaches, of course, but also, judging by its position in the brain, most probably mood swings, poor memory function and possibly some irrational decision-making amongst other things. Is any of this sounding familiar to you?"

Harvey had sat aghast before nodding his head. _No wonder the poor kid had been having a rough time with work,_ he'd thought guiltily to himself. He'd known he hadn't really helped either, well - not at all really. "And all that would have been caused by this bleeding?" he'd eventually asked, when he'd managed to pull his thoughts into some sort of order.

"Well," the doctor had said. She had a very soothing voice, Harvey had noticed. If she hadn't been telling him such awful things, he was sure he'd have enjoyed listening to her voice. "The thing is, the vessels which make up a nidus tend to be very fragile and can eventually rupture, resulting in this kind of catastrophic bleeding into the brain. We think that the main artery supplying Mike's AVM has been leaking slowly for quite some time now, but that it finally ruptured this morning while he was simply sitting at his desk." 

Harvey had sat there in a stunned silence, struggling to come to terms with it, even though it had all made such obvious and complete sense. 

"I'm sorry," the doctor had said softly. "I know it's an awful lot to take in. I do need to be honest with you, though, because the location of Mike's AVM means that we have to be prepared for the chance of some very serious consequences."

He'd stared at her blankly then, both too tired and too remorseful to react, and so she'd tried not to overload him with too much information, but instead had given him a leaflet to read which he'd stuffed into his pocket, but later, much later, after Donna had insisted that he leave Mike's side and go home for at least a little while, he'd sat down on his couch and read the whole leaflet from cover to cover.

 _Long term effects of a bleed in the frontal lobes,_ it had stated, _might impair a person's ability to understand another's feelings and problems, or to understand humor, including subtle witticisms and word plays. Another effect might be a difficulty in retaining longer term memories, especially those associated with emotions. Other effects may include: a lack of attention and limited amount of short term memory; mood and personality changes; inability to process information and difficulties in problem-solving, especially in regards to mathematics and questions or tasks that require multiple steps._

 _The outcome of the bleeding depends highly on location and extent of bleeding and subsequent treatment. However, patients who survive bleeding may be left with permanent neurological damage, such as paralysis, vision and speech problems. Many develop epilepsy because of bleed-related brain damage._

Harvey had made it to the very last page, and then he'd gotten up on shaky legs, groping his way along the walls to keep his balance, and he'd just about made it to the bathroom before he'd fallen down onto his knees and violently thrown up into the toilet.

Looking up now as Donna gives his hand a squeeze, he realizes he must have zoned out for a while, but then he sees her giving him a small smile of encouragement and yet again, he realizes how grateful he is to have her there with him, supporting him as always. She's been brilliant in the days and nights since Mike's operation, and although he wouldn't really have expected any less from her, he still very much appreciates her total acceptance of him and Mike, of their _other_ relationship, the one that's not about him being a senior partner and Mike his naive but gifted associate. She doesn't question him, she doesn't even claim to have known all along, she just listens when he needs to talk and when it all just gets too much.

One of those days had been when Harvey had been so tormented by guilt that he'd gone back to the ER to confront Dr. Harris on the day of Mike's operation. 

"What if he'd stayed in the hospital and you'd done the CT?" Harvey had asked, "Would you have spotted the leaking artery in time to do something about it before it ruptured?"

Dr. Harris had hesitated at this point. He'd known what Harvey had been asking, of course, and while he hadn't wanted to tell an outright lie, he'd had no desire to hurt the man in front of him, who was clearly hurting enough already.

"Possibly," he'd said. "If we had, we may have been able to do something preventative, but in all likelihood, it would have happened anyway. The nosebleed Mike suffered wasn't really a typical symptom, although it may have been his body's way of trying to find a release, but look, none of that matters now. What matters is what we do for Mike from this point onwards."

"I still think it's my fault," Harvey had said bleakly. "If I hadn't walked away, if he'd stayed and had the tests, if – "

"Mr. Specter," the doctor had interrupted quietly, shaking his head. "Seriously, don't do this to yourself, okay? What happened to Mike was unfortunate, but in all honesty, it had probably been coming on for quite a while, maybe even for years, maybe even since Mike was a child. We'll never know, but what we do know is that we're going to do everything we can to treat him from now on and help him recover, and you can be a part of that, so you need concentrate on moving forward, rather than looking back."

In his heart, Harvey had known that the doctor was right, but also that he was being kind, and he was grateful for that. He'd also known he'd never be able to forgive himself though. Not unless Mike was able to forgive him first.

Donna, who had listened quietly to everything he'd said when he'd relayed it all to her later, had tried her best to comfort him, and yet again he'd been grateful but not at all surprised, of course, by her devotion and loyalty. Rachel, however, has been more of a surprise. He hadn't expected her to be so loyal to Mike, although he'd known that they'd been friends. On one of his early short trips to the office, he'd overheard her, quite by chance, putting Kyle and some of the other associates in their places, and he'd called into her office to thank her, surprised but somehow pleased when she'd asked if he wanted company on his hospital visit that afternoon, and he'd accepted, insisting that Donna take some time off for herself.

They'd sat quietly in Mike's room at first. Rachel had cried a little, and Harvey had found himself curiously numb to her pain, although he'd done his best to comfort her, and he'd confessed that he hadn't realized quite how close she and Mike had become. 

She, along with Louis, who seemed to be battling with his own guilt where his treatment of Mike over the past few weeks was concerned, had become a fairly regular visitor after that, and so today, buoyed by the news flying around the office about Mike breathing on his own again, she calls in after work, once again relieving Donna of her duties. Harvey's glad to see her at first, but when she suddenly starts to cry again, he stares at her in alarm. 

"Rachel," he begins. He wants to tell her not to worry and that everything will be fine, but of course he can't, because he doesn't know that it will, but he decides to try anyway. "Rachel, don't cry," he continues awkwardly. "It's a good sign, this today. It means he's getting better."

"But I feel so guilty," she suddenly wails.

He gapes at her. "Why?" he questions. "What on earth have you got to feel guilty about?"

Rachel takes a shuddering breath. "Because a few days before this all happened, he told me something, and I just … I just told him he was being stupid. But maybe it was a sign, I mean maybe if I'd convinced him to see someone – "

"Why? What did he say?"

"He told me he was losing it," she says after a brief hesitation.

Harvey shakes his head to show he doesn't fully understand. "What did he mean? Losing what? His career?" _Me?_ he thinks, guiltily. "Losing what?" he asks her curiously.

"I think he meant his memory," she sniffs.

And then, like he's been stung by an electric shock, Harvey suddenly remembers a time when Mike had tried to have a very similar conversation with him, and he hadn't taken him seriously at all either.

"I'm losing it," Mike had said quietly, as he'd struggled with a pile of briefs. 

"Huh?" Harvey had said, not even bothering to look up from the file he'd been reading. "Losing what?"

"My memory, my skill, whatever you wanna call it, it's – it's leaving me, Harvey."

"You're just tired," Harvey had murmured. "Take five minutes. In fact, take ten and go fetch me a coffee."

Mike, however, had shaken his head. "Harvey, I'm trying to tell you something," he'd said. "Sometimes, I – I can't remember things the way I used to anymore. I used to be able to remember every word of every book I'd ever read. Now, sometimes, I can't remember what I read last week."

Harvey, engrossed in his own work, had said something about how the coffee wouldn't just buy itself, and when he'd looked up, Mike had been shuffling dejectedly out of the room. 

Later that night, looking pale and tired, Mike had picked at his food on their date in the restaurant, claiming he'd had the beginnings of a headache all day, and although there'd still been something clearly on his mind, Harvey had been so keen to get him back home and into bed that he hadn't bothered to ask him about it. Shortly after arriving at Harvey's condo, however, Mike had announced he'd begun to feel really unwell, and Harvey had waited on the bed for him while Mike had spent a good half hour in the en suite bathroom, claiming he was about to throw up, although he hadn't actually done so in the end. When he'd finally emerged, his eyes heavy and his young face lined beyond his years, Harvey had practically had to carry him to bed, the only communication between them occurring when Mike had mumbled, "M'sorry, Harvey", as he'd collapsed gratefully against the cool sheets. He'd quickly fallen asleep, curled up next to Harvey with his head leaning heavily on the older man's arm. Much later, however, he'd woken from a bad dream with a start, and although he'd wanted to talk about it, Harvey had been the tired one by then, and even later still, when Mike had confided that he'd been lying there trying to picture his mom and dad's faces but just couldn't do it, Harvey had said something like, "Well, picture the huge stack of briefs I need you to proof before 12 noon tomorrow instead, and let's get some sleep."

"You shouldn't blame yourself for anything," he tells Rachel firmly, as he tries hard to tuck these memories away somewhere where they can't hurt him. "You were a good friend to him. Better than me. He must have hated me, the way I treated him. I guess he told you I treated him like shit, right?"

Rachel looks at him, narrowing her eyes and slowly shaking her head. "That's not the way he saw it," she says. "Nothing like that at all."

"Really?" he asks curiously. "Why? What did he tell you? About me, I mean?"

She gives him a look as though to say, "What didn't he say about you?" and he finds that he almost smiles, despite his anxious feelings. "I knew he loved being with you," she says, "but I didn't really realize just how much until that day."

"Ah," he says awkwardly, remembering how she'd said that Mike had told her something about him, just before his collapse. _Personal stuff,_ she'd said. "I was just wondering … well, you know … if … "

His throat runs dry, and he looks down, somewhat embarrassed.

"You want me to tell you what he said?" she offers and he nods, still with his eyes on the floor.

"Please. If, well, you know, if …"

"I'd be happy to tell you," she says. "If you think it might help?"

Again Harvey nods, and this time he looks her in the eye, trying to mentally prepare himself for what she has to say.

"Well, he was in quite a lot of pain," she says, "and like I told you, he seemed confused, but ..."

"Please, Rachel," he prompts. "Just tell me." 

She nods. "Okay," she says. She takes a deep breath. "It was about something that had happened between you both the day before, something bad. You'd broken up with him, he said, just walked out and left." She screws her face up a little as she tries to remember his exact words. "He said – he said you'd said something, called him a liar or something like that. He said – he just wanted you to believe in him, to trust him again. He said he wanted to be able to tell you how he really felt about you, that he - he'd fallen in love with you. He said he loved you, and that he hoped one day - one day, you'd be able to say it back."

She's alarmed by the extent of his reaction, by the way he suddenly moans as he leans forward and covers his face, and for a moment she's sure he's actually going to cry. In a panic, she thinks about phoning Donna, or even Louis, or _somebody,_ at least, but then just as quickly, he seems to recover his composure, and he very politely thanks her for sharing what she knows with him before asking her if she wouldn't mind leaving him alone now. She's quite frightened at first, thinking that she's probably done the wrong thing entirely, and again she thinks of calling Donna, but upon seeing the unease in her worried expression, he does a good job of assuring her that he's okay, and so she respects his wishes and quietly leaves.

By the time he leaves the hospital himself, it's very late and as he lies curled up in bed, Harvey thinks through what Rachel had said, and he feels such a strong urge to cry that he has to dig his fingers hard into the flesh under his eyes in an effort to hold it in, and yet somehow he manages to lock his tears deep down inside. After a while, he relaxes a little, enough to stretch out onto his back, and he lies there with his hands laced behind his head, staring up into the darkness and thinking about Mike and the way things had developed between them.

Although their first kisses had been impulsive and lustful, and their first sexual encounters exciting but hurried blow jobs in the file room, or in Harvey's office late at night, the first time they'd actually made love properly had been here in this bed, on a long and lazy Sunday afternoon with the rain hammering down against the huge windows. Mike had come around uninvited at midday with a file he'd been working on, all excited eyes and wet hair, and Harvey, delighted with the loophole the younger man had found for him, had grabbed him and pulled him into a fierce celebratory kiss. Mike had happily reciprocated, and before long had found himself tumbling backwards onto Harvey's huge bed, with Harvey panting on his hands and knees above him, and with his jeans hanging open. There'd been a question in Harvey's dark eyes, which Mike's blue ones had readily answered with a hungry gaze which had flicked slowly from Harvey's open mouth to his glittering eyes, then down to the promising bulge between his legs and back again, and in that moment, a decision had been made which neither of them had since regretted. 

Away from the busy office setting, Harvey had taken the time to savor Mike's body in a way that he'd never had the chance to do so before, taking delight in slowly peeling off his clothes and tenderly kissing each newly exposed part of him, and Mike, loving the attention the older man had been lavishing upon him, had moaned lightly as Harvey's tongue had leisurely mapped each part of his wholly sensitised flesh, bringing him to a quivering wreck, so that by the time Harvey had entered him and was thrusting deeply, they'd both been moaning and shuddering with the intensity of all that perfect pleasure.

These memories make it a long night for Harvey, whose pent-up feelings churn and boil within him, and the next morning, after very little sleep, he decides not to go into work after all, but heads straight to the hospital instead. It's long before visiting time, but at the nurses' station they just smile and wave him through. He'd realised a while ago that they'd come to see him very much as the devoted partner, because of the hours he'd spent at Mike's bedside reading to him, or carefully placing softly padded headphones over his ears in order to play him his favourite tracks from his iPod – anything really, to see if he can get a response. He doesn't mind them thinking of him in this way though, even if he feels he doesn't deserve it: after all, how could they possibly know that he's the man who walked away, leaving Mike crying and desperately calling out his name?

"Are you okay?" Donna asks him when she arrives later. "Why haven't you been answering your calls? I was worried when you didn't show up for work."

"I think I left my phone in the back of Ray's car," he says disinterestedly. "I'll expect he'll find it later and get it to me somehow." 

"So what's that then?" Donna asks, frowning as she points to his hand, because he's quite clearly holding a cell phone.

"It's Mike's," he says after a pause, looking down at it. "You know, that day … " 

He stops, pauses again, then takes such a deep breath that it makes Donna almost wish she hadn't asked, but she knows Harvey. He wouldn't be toying with the phone if he didn't have something to say.

"Harvey?" she presses gently. "What is it?"

He takes another breath and lets it out slowly before beginning to speak. "That day," he says again, "when I was on my way to the office to see Mike, when I realised what a total idiot I'd been, I just really wanted to apologise to him – you know, for the things I told you about? The way I'd accused him? And, of course, for the fact that I'd just walked out and left him there all alone. I just wanted to make it up to him." He pauses again, still passing the phone from one palm to the other and back again in an endless cycle. "The thing is," he eventually continues, "I sent him a text, saying I was sorry and asking for his forgiveness, but he never actually got it."

"How do you know he didn't?" Donna asks. "He might have," but Harvey immediately shakes his head. 

"When I charged the phone up, the message was still there in his inbox," he says sadly. "It was unopened, so I know he never got it."

Donna watches him carefully for a moment or two. "So basically, you're saying that you're worried because he doesn't yet know how sorry you are?" she asks him softly. 

"More than that, I'm worried that he'll _never_ know," Harvey tells her. "Donna, what happens if he never wakes up? Or if he wakes up and he's not … not …." His words dry up and he can't quite bring himself to say it. "Because the last time I saw him," he says, rushing on, " _properly_ saw him, I mean, I was shouting in his face that I didn't believe him, and he – he was crying and calling out to me, and I just kept on walking away. I just left him there." He stops as he remembers what Dr. Harris had said, about Mike crying so hard that they'd needed to sedate him, and for a moment Donna thinks she's never seen him look so lost, at least not since that terrible day when she'd had to tell him the devastating news about his father. 

"Harvey," she says, reaching out a hand, but he shakes his head, pulling himself out of reach, and she gets the impression for a moment that he doesn't even think he's worth comforting. 

"If I can't forgive myself for that," he says, "then how the hell can I expect _him_ to?" 

"He will, Harvey," Donna tells him. He shakes his head, and she says again, insistently, "He _will._ "

He looks at her then with deep brown eyes that are full of hurt and regret. "How can you be so sure?" he asks miserably.

"Call it Donna's intuition," she says, gently smiling. "And besides, you don't need to wait for him to wake up to talk to him, do you? You can talk to him now."

Harvey looks back at Mike, so peaceful-looking in the bed, and so still. "But what more can I say," he asks doubtfully, "except I'm sorry?"

"Harvey." Donna's voice is commanding and serious, but when he meets her gaze, her eyes are warm and dancing with nothing but affection. "You know what to say," she tells him. After she stands to gather her things, he lets her kiss his cheek and she carefully pushes back a stray lock of his hair. "Just tell him how you really feel," she says quietly, near his ear.

He listens to her heels as they tap their way down the hallway before settling himself back down in his chair at the side of the bed. The book he's been reading to Mike, a fairly trashy crime novel but one by an author he knows Mike enjoys, is by his hand, and he picks it up, finds his marker, but then he closes it again and places it back at the end of the bed. He then sits there for a while, his head bowed, thinking, his hands clasped in his lap, and to anyone peering through the vision panel in the door, it would look to all intents and purposes as if he were praying. Every now and then, he glances up and watches Mike's still form carefully, for without the noise of the ventilator to reassure him, he frequently feels the need to visually check that Mike is actually still breathing.

Eventually, he pushes himself up, leans forward against the bedrail and props his chin on his hands as he studies Mike's face, so pale and still. The nurses have been carefully washing and shaving him while he's been a patient here and even rinsing his hair whenever they redressed his wound, but there's a little spot of stubble they seem to have missed on his upper lip, and Harvey stares at it before reaching out to caress its roughness gently with the smooth pad of his thumb. He's so much missed the touch of Mike's lips brushing sensitively against his own, missed the friction of his soft bristly stubble against his skin.

"Mike," he says quietly, and then a little more loudly after clearing his throat, "Mike, I hope you can hear me." Taking Mike's hand in his own, he holds it, carefully stroking and caressing his fingers. "I need you with me," he whispers, "by my side. I'm so sorry about what I said to you that day at the hospital, for - for leaving you there on your own. I … " He stops, and then he lifts Mike's fingers to his lips and kisses them, just as he had that day when he'd been crouched over him in the bullpen, and he closes his eyes, thinking hard about Donna's advice.

Suddenly, his heart is thudding, bursting with the things he needs to say and do, and he can't hold it inside any longer. "Mike," he breathes. "Come back to me, please. I need you. I love you. I love you so much. Mike, please. I won't know what to do if I haven't got you." His breath hitches, and his nose starts to run a little and he sniffs and scrubs a hand furiously across his eyes, but the bright tears are starting to sting now, because he knows, knows that he loves this man more than anyone he's ever loved in his whole life, and because he's already messed it up before they even had a chance, screwed up, in fact, the only chance he's ever really had to be truly happy, and in love. 

And then he looks down in amazement as he feels warm, weak fingers delicately squeezing his own, and he finds himself gazing down into blue eyes which are watching him solemnly.

"Mike!" he gasps excitedly. "You're awake."

"Harvey," Mike whispers, as he tries hard to smile.

The voice Harvey hears is husky, a mere croak, nothing like Mike's voice at all really, but to him it's the sweetest, most beautiful thing he's ever heard in his life, and at first he can say nothing, and so he just smiles down at him, still holding his hand, too choked to speak.

"You came back," he says at last, still smiling but now planting small kisses on Mike's fingers, on his palm and the inside of his wrist. "You came back to me. Don't ever leave me again, Mike, ever. Promise me. Please, promise me. Never leave me again."

Mike is puzzled by this, by everything really, by why he's lying here and why Harvey's fervently saying these things, because he'd never be the one to leave Harvey, never, and he wants to say it to him too, but his throat is so sore and so dry and besides, he can't quite think how he can put his thoughts into words.

"Okay," is all he can manage, and Harvey clasps his hand tightly, nodding and smiling and bowing his head low, as the hot, thankful tears begin to fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although this story essentially has a happy ending, there are hints in the last few paragraphs that all is not necessarily as well as it seems. The sequel, 'What More Can I Do, Except Keep On Loving You?' follows Mike's rehabilitation and Harvey's continuing efforts to cope.


End file.
